IS SPRING ARRIVING?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1038, 31 July 1930, Page 1

IS SPRING ARRIVING?

STATISTICIANS ADVANCE INADEQUATE CASE PARADOXICAL ARGUMENTS The paradox about the approach of sp’ring is that it cent along heavy frosts to annoy Auckland. The reluctance of the people to proceed cityward from the suburbs was best Illustrated this morning by the hesitant manner in which Auckland poked its collective nose above the counterpane. Still, the weather statisticians declare that spring is almost here. This is an opinion which ha 3 not convinced the average city worker to any considerable extent. It is hard to tell a man who is harassed by awkward draughts wherever he goes, bitter frosts each morning and all the discomforts of chill weather that these conditions are all portents of spring.

Yet there are those who seek to prove that spring is certainly on Auckland's doorstep simply because the minimum temperature in the shade since midnight on Tuesday has been 3-S degrees and, for the day prior to that, 39 degrees. These people positively gloat over the knowledge that the air temperature at nine o’clock the last few mornings has been about 44 degrees and the lowest temperature on the grass during these unpleasant dayß has been so many degrees. What, asks Auckland peevishly, has such information to do with predictions of spring? Everyone knows it has been cold, anyway. It is the greatest axiom of the day that statistics do not please people. Disgruntled already because the Prime Minister has been perplexing everyone with wads of figures proving that New Zealand needs to be saved by purposeful politicians, steely of eye and grim of jaw, the communities of the Dominion are in no mood' to ponder over calculations supporting the obvious knowledge that it has been cold. Another obvious thing has been noted by these fiends who secure every confirmation of their belief that sunny Auckland is a bleak place these days. Some original person has been waiting on the cheerless railway station, brimming with anticipation, merely to peer at the undercarriages of the Limited express. What did he discover? Snow, of course. Yes, and it came all the way from the King Country, from Ohakune, or Taumarunui, or Pokako, or Waimarino or some such place where it has been snowing. \ The statisticians have raved over this discovery. Auckland, as a whole, remains sublimely indifferent to the news. One important fact in connection with this momentous find has been overlooked by the statisticians. They have forgotten to inform Auckland that the snow lasted all the way from Ohakune, or Taumarunui, or Pokako simply because the temperature was sufficiently low all the journey to permit this surprising phenomenon. Everything about cold weather is obvious. The only thing that is not patently clear to Auckland is that spring is on the way.