WEATHER FORECASTING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22809, 19 February 1936, Page 6

WEATHER FORECASTING

TOE APIA OBSERVATORY YALUE TO SOUTH SEAS SHIPPING (Per United Pbess Association) CHRISTCHURGH. February 18. The reliance placed by South Sea s shipping on the weather forecasting service of the Apia Observatory was emphasised by Mr H. P. Baird, of the staff of the Magnetic Observatory at Christchurch, who has returned after acting as director ot the Samoan Observatory for the last six months. Mr Baird was relieving Mr J. Wadsworth, director of the observatory, who was on leave. - •''-":' " Early one morning just before I left, said Mr Baird, "I was called to the telephone to be told: 'Radio station speaking. We have Pago Pago on the key. They are in touch with a ship.that wants to know what the weather is likely to be for the next few hours.' That is typical of many inquiries made. Apia also seems likely to become an important forecasting outpost for the airways operating across the Pacific." . Most of Mr Baird's own work at the observatory at Apia was in seismology. He went with the idea that the structure of the earth's crust near Samoa would be different from what was known to exist in Continental areas and for that matter in New Zealand. The records obtained there, however, showed that the surface structure of the earth there was the same as in Continental areas. Similar deductions had been made from seismological records in Honolulu recently. In view of these observations and the work of Dr Perry Byerly, of California, it seemed likely that the structure of the Pacific basin was not greatly different from that of other parts of the earth.