Abstract
THE annual report of the Director of the Meteorological Office for the year ended March 31, 1935 (London: H.M. Stationery Office. 9d. net), records a further big increase in the amount of information supplied to the public and to aviators, in accordance with a tendency that has been much in evidence for several years. The Aviation Services, for example, report a total increase of 18,747 in inquiries and of 2,404 in weather reports passed to aircraft in flight; in the British Climatology Division 2,348 general or scientific inquiries were dealt with, this figure including 178 legal inquiries, representing nearly a sixfold increase as compared with 1924-25 and nearly a doubling of the volume of inquiries in the past five years. While the main work of the Meteorological Office during the year under review has been on the same lines as in previous years, certain changes of organisation have been completed. Since the reorganisation after the War, there have been separate divisions for forecasts and aviation, but as experience has shown that this arrangement is not the best from the point of view of efficiency, the two divisions have been combined since October 1, 1934, control of the single large division by a single head, with two senior officers as deputies, being aimed at eventually. The Naval Division has for years been working in cooperation with the Admiralty towards the creation of a weather forecasting service within the Fleet which shall be self-contained but not independent of the State Meteorological Service; that objective has been attained with the expectation of its being in full operation by the end of 1936. Other important changes include a restriction of the responsibility of the Meteorological Office in the matter of gale warnings to the issue of the warning telegrams, the Board of Trade being responsible, as from September 1,1934, for the exhibition of the warnings and the supply and maintenance of warning cones for that purpose; and the taking over by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Fishery Board of Scotland of the supervision of the stations of the Fishery Barometer and Barograph Service as from January 1, 1935.
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Work of the Meteorological Office. Nature 136, 636 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136636b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136636b0