WEATHER FORECASTS

Southland Times, Issue 22813, 12 February 1936, Page 6

WEATHER FORECASTS

DEPARTMENT CRITICIZED. RE-ORGANIZATION URGED BY FARMERS. (Per United Press Association.) Auckland, February 11. . “That in view of the misleading weather reports published daily in the Press, which can only be classed as dead reckonings or rule of thumb, we request that the Meteorological Department be reorganized.” This remit was moved by Mr T. D. Bathgate, of Kaipara, at the meeting of the Provincial Executive of the Farmers’ Union to-day. The mover said that for the last few months the forecast had been mostly “scattered showers” and it was a common saying now when scattered showers were prophesied that they could look forward for a deluge. The first warning of a storm was a fall in the barometer. In his district 300 or 400 pigs and sheep were lost and with a warning they might have been removed to safe ground. “The Government is paying a salary to a man who is not doing his job,” Mr Bathgate added. Mr J. H. Furniss said several lives had been lost because no warning had been given. An amendment moved by Mr A. B. Moore that the Government be requested to place larger financial resources at the disposal of the Department lapsed for want of a seconder. The remit was then adopted in the following form: “That this meeting requests that the Government Meteorological Department be reorganized.”