The Bismarck Tribune

Speaking of the Weather

by Charles Fitzhugh Tolman

of the U.S. Weather Bureau

Maps, Charts, Bulletins, Reports All Figure in Weather Bureau Work—Many are Vital to Farmers

Every week the U.S. Weather Bureau issues an illuminating sheet called the "Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin." This is published chiefly for agricultural interests, but it contains much of general value. There is a summary of the week's weather, with a statement of outstanding abnormalities, particularly of temperature and rainfall over appreciable areas. Paragraphs about weather in Argentina, England, India, and Australia are added. The special telegraphic summaries from the several states or sections of the Weather Bureau show the details of the week's weather and its effects on crops and farming operations. A table gives the week's rainfall and temperature and the departure from normal for 150 stations, and two maps show the temperature departures and actual amount of rainfall.

The temperature map is a peculiar one. Shaded portions indicate regions warmer than normal, and unshaded regions cooler than normal while the lines on the map indicate the extent of the departure; e.g., three, six or nine degrees plus or minus. Hence the region having the highest figures is not likely to be the warmest, nor is that with the lowest figures necessarily the coldest.

In the preparation of this bulletin the officials in charge at designated central weather bureau stations in each state collect information weekly from many special cooperative meteorological observers and from a large number of weather and crop correspondents in the respective states relative to prevailing weather conditions and their effect on farming operations and crop development. These officials make weekly telegraphic reports to the central weather bureau office at Washington, D.C., where the information is tabulated and summarized and a synopsis issued for the entire country. This is released each Wednesday at 10 a.m. and is published in the "Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin" above described.

In addition there is published a local weather and crop summary at each state center containing information in more detail as to conditions prevailing in the respective states. There is also published at New Orleans a "Weekly Cotton Region Bulletin" covering conditions in the cotton belt as a whole, and at Chicago a similar report pertaining to the principal grain-producing states.