WEATHER PROPHET THE WAR ZONE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 11

WEATHER PROPHET THE WAR ZONE

"METEOR" AT WORK

(By Lieutenant C. Vince.)

Men have studied the weather longer than they have i studied anything else.in the world. Froin the most remote times they have handed down their knowledge of its signs. But weather forecasting as a science became possible only when the telegraph enabled a man to know, at the same moment, what winds were blowing arid what clouds were moving, not only over his own head but over half the world. ' "

Then, not long after tho telegraph oame, Europe had a striking proof of the, valuo of weather forecasting. It was a proof from war—fi*m the Crimean war. ' A French and British fleet lying in the Black Sea was wrecked by a violent storm, and a French scientist, tracking that 6toTm across "Bunpe, was able to prove that its coming could have been predicted and the fleet saved. In these two things was the beginning of the modern weather prophet. And now every man knows the importance of the weather in war, and watches the skies when ho reads that an attack' has begun, and, wonders if the coming rain' will be worse for the attackers or attacked, and if the guns will be able to" move up, and if the rain matters as much in that piece.of country Where the new battle is as it did whore the last battle came to a sudden, and a sodden, end.

So much everyone knows, and so much everyone says, and' there are nearly, as many war-weather prophets as there are armchair critics, but hardly anyone_ outside the Army knows how thoroucJi a weather service the Army has, with men who are continually measuring the winds and men who photograph' the clouds (classifying them- under twenty different types) arid a telegraph servico in touch With more places than one may mention. The officers who thus concern them- - selves with the weather are familiarly known' as-"Meteors," and they are ruled by a chief Meteorological Expert, who. works in a Nissen hut on the top of the high-ground beside an old, French town. ' There messages come to him from many places in France—and beyond France, and ho issues weather forecasts to the armies threß times n day. If you were to-see that four-page printed sheet with its charts and its tables which "Meteor" issues, you would realise that a_ weather forecast "for military operations is a very different thing from tho daily paragraphin the paper which lets you know, if_ it would be w' s? to'.- take an umbrella with you when you got out. - '.Besides these general forecasts of the weather special forecasts are prepared for the airman and the gunners. For the ai.-man who has to fly out and home, on a night bombing raid at a certain height in the air, wants to know something different about the winds and the clouds, from the gunhcr whoso 6hell has to pass first upland tlien down' through successive heights of, the air' meeting at eachheight a different strength of wind and a different air resistance. •

Nor .are these'the only- men -whose daily work depends on what "Meteor" tells them. ..There is the officer directing' a gas attack; there is.the officer pending over the. propaganda balloons with their "drum fire of minted paper against .the spirit of the. German front";, there are the transport'officers.'and" the- roads officers, ."To the first' two the,wind is their ,ono instrument. To the gas officer an unexpected change of wind, means worse' than failure,' to .the propagandist it means that he'.hits "missed all his targets and wasted his. "drum fire." To the transport officer and the roads officer rain is the great enemy against which they must be prepared; rain and worse still, in the winter, sudden thaws. If the transpprt officer is not named,in time there may be disastrous delays, munitions failing' when they ' are " most wanted, transport caught by daylight on roads where they should only,:travel'by night. To the roads' officer heavy rains or an unexpected thaw may mean roads worn' to pieces before traffic' can bo'controlled or the steps taken to repair them. ' All these, airmen and gunners, gas officers, and propagandists, transport officers and road.,..officers must 'work by "Meteors eigiisV' :■>-' "'''•' : " '' '" "".'' ' "If you went into ''Meteors hut- you would' find him .between walls covered with tinted maps and surrounded by en.sels, with all sorts of wind oh arts ami temperature charts and diagrams, In. a corner are instruments. Behind him is a' table on which are arrangod clipped bundles of red and' white message form's" covered vw'ith figures;' In front of'him-'is"a little window looking out across the ramparts to ft'great space of sky.' ■'■': i • It was late in the afternoon when I 6aw him, a' dark and'stormy autumn afternoon; A sergeant-major came in with telegrams. ■ "Meteor'.' rend them: glanced at his weather chart and his instruments ;'• went out to the ramparts andiooked up at-ithe clouds going across at sixty miles an hour; came in; wrote a few sentences in a ledger and handed it to tho sergeant-major. - It wag the supplementary forecast ready to be signalled all over tho'British zone. Outside tho h.ut I met one of his officer's, just back from-'a-station nearby where he had been measuring the wind. He was "Meteor" of the Army, and had como from its headquarters a few days .before. .'He stopped to talk of the wvrk. ' - ■■'-~'■ ' "Oh! they, think a lot of the weather up there," he. said. Old, (and"he n:entioned aftVctioimtely a famous general, commanding that army) sends for me every morning. Haiu • work at times. • It keeps me up pretty late when' they're doing, gas stunts. I have to be up every night to. do the weather for them and sometimes its night after night. . . '; But I'll tell you what-makes you feel the responsibility most.. Its when a flight commander wants to know if' he can take his squadron out .bombing, and it's a doubtful night. You have to tell him if tho weather will hold or change, and if the wind will blow good and steady all night, or if it will rise' when he's gono and blow so that he will never, get home again." So they watch the weather in France as closely as they watch the Hun, to use it or guard themselves against it. For success or failure depend on it, and sometimes life and death.