DOMINION WEATHER

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15679, 4 October 1922, Page 8

DOMINION WEATHER

" THE DIRECTOR’S REPORT. “Every morning at 9 o ? clock about five Hundred obseryers throughout the Dominion are each making from one ■to twenty notes upon, weather conditions,” says the Director of the Meteorological Office in his last report. “These observers are mostly volunteers, who record and forward their observations in monthly returns to the Meteorological Office. Some climatic records go back over 70 years, and were made by some of the earnest and capable pioneers who came to settle this country. A small part of the observations are, however, telegraphed daily to Wellington, and are then collated and published in all the chief centres, being also used as the basis for weather forecast. It is as if a curtain Were raised for a moment throughout the' Dominion, giving a glimpse of the atmospheric states prevailing then over, the whole country. „

K “The Meteorological' Office was |,'founded in 1867, and great attention ‘ was given to \t*he work until 1880, when iu a time pf severe retrenchment the work was greatly crippled. Again, ; during the late war and since, in consequent divergence from normal conditions, when the need for advance was felt to be greatest, we have been short of instruments and restricted for want of funds; and observers throughout the country have also been changing their stations more frequently, and observations have been generally more irregular than in former > times.

“Chatham Islands reports its weather regularly.every evening by radio. This is also cabled by us to Australia' hvery day of ths year with other reports, at the expense of the Commonwealth Government. One important, source of information —from ships at sea —is*not. available at this office; but weather reporting from ships is well organised, and has been foundmost useful in other countries which need such reports far less than we do hi these isolated islands.

“No reports are available from the Pacific Islands, the sum voted in a former year being insufficient to obtain even one daily report from one island. As tropical cyclones are generated in these regions, it is hoped 'that these reports will be secured in future, and, when the Kermadecs are inhabited,. that a. radio station may Then give us weather reports, which may at times prove . of inestimable value .for- saving life and property.”