FORECASTING WEATHER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18771, 26 July 1924, Page 11

FORECASTING WEATHER.

IMPORTANCE TO FARMERS. POORLY EQUIPPED STATION. STRANGE AUCKLAND RECORDS. \BY I2XEGHA2'H.--OWN COBRESPC3TOEOT.] WELLINGTON. Friday. An interesting address on tbo growth of the New Zealand Government MeteorologicaJ Office was given to the Chamber of Commerce members,, yesterday, by Mr. D. G. Bates, Government Meteorologist. =, In introducing the speaker, Mr. EL D. Bennett, who opened, regretted the poor equipment of such an important department to seamen and fanners. The work of the office was not assisted by the Government in the way it should be, he said. He happened to know that the money to be .spent on equipment for the year was less than £10. It was an important office and a good deal more notice should be taken of it by the Government than was foreshadowed in the estimates. Mr. Bates spoke of the importance of records of the climate and of the value of forecasts to the men on the land. Our climate was our chief asset, he said, and our records were copied into all the great almanacs and geographies of the world. He gave an instance of a fault, discovered in the housing of instrumental in Auckland too near a tue roof with the result that the Auckland readings of heat and cold were: exaggerated. The instruments were moved after a time to a proper position. Not many . months afterwards a query came from the Berlin observatory as to the cause of the marked change in the Auckland readings. That showed how importantly such records were viewed in other parts of the world. The growth of the meteorological recording system in New Zealand from 1857, was traced by Mr. Bates, who told how the important records were lost by shipwreck in transport from Auckland to Wellington, and again by fire in Wellington. He described the system by which records from all parts of New Zealand were collected and the statistics compiled. Some people thought the Mef-eorological Office existed merely as a source of tips of fine weather to holiday makers and week-! enders, but while this work was of some interest, it was hot permanent like the records of actual rainfall. Since the war ships had ceased to send in reports of the weather. "During the war," said Mr. Bates, "the chief difficulty was the lack of instruments, the main reason for which was the way supplies were scattered around by the British Government. The air force, the navy, the artillery and the army each had their own observatories, besides othern, and all these worked independently of each other where better > service could have been obtained by a fully equipped and staffed central oD'sor vatory. Then the Americans came over, > and with them a tremendous number of i enthusiastic meteorologists, all of whom proved a drain on the resources of instrument supply. I visited several of these observatories while in England after the war, many of them idle, and necuved the offer of apparatus badly wanted here. ! There was talk of sending I'JO aeropianes ! here and I tried to have the value of one aeroplane spent in meteorological instru- ' ments. In the end 35 aeroplanes were ' secured but no instruments. Chile and ■ Brazil got in ahead of us for some of them. . " Our office, nevertheless, does valuable work. I could give you instances where 1 the lives of hundreds of sheep and lambs 1 have been saved by timely warnings from the Meteorological Office.'