Page:The Fun of It.pdf/145

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE FUN OF IT
119

for long. Almost universally they move from west to east in the United States, just as prevailing winds on this hemisphere and over the Atlantic are westerly, primarily controlled by the revolution of the earth itself.

Each storm center. Dr. Kimball explained, re­volves in a counter clockwise direction, when it is north of the equator.

“Have you ever noticed,” he asked, “how water draining from a basin always swirls opposite the hands of a clock?”

“We’re usually through with the weather map about noon,” Dr. Kimball went on. “Gen­erally these reports come in from one hun­dred and fifty stations in the United States. Then there are thirty or more from Canada, and others from Bermuda, and from several points in the arctic, including Greenland. In the summer we get regular reports from the ice patrol up in the Grand Banks region. And, of course, each morn­ing the data come from Great Britain covering the eastern Atlantic and Europe.”

It takes about four hours to compile and digest all this far-flung information. Once in, and the weather map made, the bureau is ready to issue its predictions. That “Fair and Warmer” prophecy you read in the paper isn’t at all the guesswork of some individual optimist; it’s the product of the la­bor of a hundred men or more, and its compilation has cost thousands of dollars.

The ground hog and the “nature signs” of the