WARNING OF STORMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18340, 5 March 1923, Page 7

WARNING OF STORMS.

NEED IN THE PACIFIC. KERMADEC STATION SUGGESTEDThe absence in the Pacific of weatherrecording stations from which vessels approaching New Zealand could gain information of the weather likely to be encountered was remarked on by Captain Olsen, master of the American steamer Vinita, which arrived at Auckland from San Francisco yesterday morning. When about a day's run off the Kermadec Group Captain Olsen- sent * wixeies* message to- Auckland asking: for ; a report of the i weather. He received a reply that the weather was fine here and the wind was blowing lightly from the southeast. The weather at ; Auckland was a* the message stated, but the information was of no value to Captain 01sen, : be. ; cause next day. when about 100 miles north of the Kermadecs, the Vinita encountered a cyclone, which kept her hove-to for nearly'three days. The high confueen sea and changeable wind indicated that the centre of the storm was not far distant. The Vinita. is loaded with a very high, deck: load of timber, which might have i been washed overboard in the storm: and caused the vessel to founder.. Captain OUen states thafe, had he known in sufficient time that a cyclone was blowing in that locality, he could have altered bis course and; the ship would have passed well clear of the danger. This is the third; cyclonic storm that has been experienced in the South Pacific within the last three weeks bv vessels bound 'co New Zealand. The Bona and the Niagara both encountered a hurricane within 20 miles of one another on February 14. Two days later the Waihora, some hundreds of miles further north, was nearly lost in another cyclonic storm. As neither of these cyclones seems to have passed over any of the inhabited islands in the South- Pacific, no warning of their 1 approach could he broadcasted in order that approaching steamers could be diverted: clear of their tracks, which can be estimated with a, fair amount of accuracy. Captain Olsen suggests, as other mariners have done, that a meteorological station for the Kermadec Group, which is about midway between New Zealand and Fiji, would prove valuable in warning shipping, and poisibly be the. means of saving passenger md cargo steamers ,from disaster. \ ~.,-.■■/■;:•/,