TOO STORMY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 456, 14 February 1933, Page 3

TOO STORMY

aeroplanes avoid the shores of f GALILEE. UNRELIABLE WIND. London, Saturday. Aeroplanes, like the nsherman of the New Testament, have suffered from the sudden night tempests in Galilee (writes the aeronautical correspondent of The Times). The aeroplanes, too, have taken fright and will stay for the night no more near the Lake of Tiberias, or Sea of Galilee. The winds cannot be predicted; their direction may change so qnickly that the pegs and tetherings-of-a-big ■aeroplane cannot be adjusted soon enough. The liners of Imp'erial Aiiways will henceforth go to Ramleh | for the night. _ : A popular explanation of such violent variations relies upon the assumption of a rapid eooling of the air after sunset over the desert and Mount Hermon. The wind so produced rushes into the river valleys and wadis and deiscends on the lake. The disturhances may occur at any time during the night or early morning. They may be of some intensity, and the" wind has been known to swing round a full 180 -degrees within a few minntes. A report hy a meteorological officer in Galilee early this year showed that the wind was hlowing1 from the north at 1.6 p;m. on a particular day, and was hlowing from the south seven minntes later. As a rule theise winds do not exceed 30 miled an hour in velocity, which in itself is a high rate for a katabatic wind, but at times the air liners pegged out for the night have been buffeted by winds of 60 miles an hour. The flying-boats moored on the lake can weather such storms. They swing head on to wind wherever it may be. The air liner may have her moonngs toru up when violent winds suddenly change their direction, and the result in that case might he serious.