Quarterly Weather Report of the Meteorological Office

Abstract

THIS, the new number of the Quarterly Weather Report, is in point of care the equal, in some minor details of execution the superior, of all former numbers. The method of showing the wind's velocity by a shaded curve, which has been adopted since the first part of this series, adds much to the ease with which the graphic representation can be read, and is a decided improvement; so is the introduction into the margin of the miniature charts of barometric pressure during strong winds. The engraving too is clearer and finer than in some of the past numbers, and is perhaps as nearly perfect as can be. After a few years the accumulated numbers of these reports will form a most valuable record. There are many students of meteorology still impressed with the idea that, with a correct knowledge of what has been, we may be able to form an opinion of what is to be. It seems to us by no means improbable that with more accurate information, such as this now being stored for future use, we may before long arrive at the power of foretelling the general character of seasons, in regard to their being wet or dry, hot or cold, stormy or gentle; but we see no reason to believe that any amount of study of the past will ever enable us to predict in detail for any length of time in advance, though it may and must lead us to a better capability of rightly interpreting the atmospheric changes going on, of detecting them at their earliest beginning, of judging their probable effects, and thus of extending the period for which “storm warnings” may be made available. With increased experience new power will be gained, new methods will be learned and proved. Even now, the spectroscopic observations by Commander Maclear, to which he called our attention in these columns only a few weeks ago, seem to point hopefully towards a new path in meteorological research; for it is not only in the widely different climate of the Bay of Biscay, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, that he observes the differences in the spectrum which he has spoken of in the article just referred to; he informs us that his later observations lead him to believe that the changes in the atmospheric humidity distinctly correspond to changes in the solar spectrum; that, for instance, an increasing humidity manifests itself by a shortening in of the blue, and by a well marked development of aqueous bands in the red and yellow. Whether further examination will confirm this belief or not it is at present impossible to say, but the spectroscope has done so much towards teaching us the constitution of other atmospheres, that we may fairly entertain a hope that the time has come for it to teach us something about the distant and outlying parts of our own.

Quarterly Weather Report of the Meteorological Office.

Part III. July to September 1870. (Stanford, 1872.)