Daily Bulletin of Weather Reports, Signal Service, United States Army, taken at 7.35 A.M., 4.35 P.M., and 11 P.M. Washington Mean Time, with the Synopses, Probabilities, and Facts for the Month of September 1872

Abstract

THIS is a quarto volume of upwards of 180 pp., containing besides 90 weather-charts—three for each day of the month of September 1872. The volume is published for the purpose of showing the method of working of this division of the U.S. Signal Service, the “Division of Telegrams and Reports for the benefit of Commerce and Agriculture.” The system appears to us to be thorough and careful, and calculated to lead to valuable scientific results in the department of meteorology. For each of the three daily times mentioned in the title, there is first a tabulated meteorological record from 72 stations in the United States and British N. America, showing the state of thebarometer, thermometer, humidity, wind, clouds, rainfall, weather. This is followed by a weather-map constructed on the preceding record, on which, by clearly distinguishable marks, the state of the weather at all the stations is shown, whether clear, cloudy, snow, rain, &c., the direction and velocity of the wind, and the average elevation of the locations. Following this is a synopsis of the record, in which the general results of a comparison of the particular observations are briefly stated. This synopsis is succeeded by a statement of “probabilities,” which are the deductions made from the conditions exhibited in the chart, considered in their sequence, as to the meteoric changes probably to follow within the twenty-four hours next ensuing. Then come the “facts” by which the “probabilities” may be tested, these facts being a classified statement of the state of the weather at the various stations at the next succeeding time of observation, with “general remarks” showing how far the probabilities have been realised. This is done, as we have said, three times every day of the month for which this Bulletin is published, and the value of the publication to students of meteorology is evident. “As a contribution of data, at least, to meteoric science,” the introductory statement justly says, “and a demonstration that it needs only that governments should will and act through proper organisation to make meteoric knowledge of daily and practical use to the people, the publication must have its value.” The Government of the United States deserves the highest credit for the wisdom it displays in perceiving what the true interests of the country are, and for its liberality in supporting a scientific department such as the one from which this Bulletin issues, whose business it is, by publishing the result of scientific research, to “benefit commerce and agriculture.” By a patient pursuit of the system exhibited in this Bulletin, and by adopting what improvements may from time to time suggest themselves, we have no doubt that results of great value to science will follow.

Daily Bulletin of Weather Reports, Signal Service, United States Army, taken at 7.35 A.M., 4.35 P.M., and 11 P.M. Washington Mean Time, with the Synopses, Probabilities, and Facts for the Month of September 1872.

(Washington, Government Printing Office, 1873.)