RADIO WEATHER REPORTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1028, 19 July 1930, Page 6

RADIO WEATHER REPORTS

GOVERNMENTS DECISION QUESTIONED A SCIENTIST’S FEAR Special to THE SVS WELLINGTON, Today. . The fear that the Government’s decision to cease wirelessing weather reports to ships at sea may affect the efficiency of the Dominion's Meteorologist’s Office is expressed by a prominent scientist. The position in relation to the weather service for ships, he states, is that the Scientific Research Department pays for all wireless messages, inward and outward, affecting the weather. The Post and Telegraph Department, in fact, receives about £5,000 annually for all telegraphing of weather advice, by wireless and land lines. The mariners on ships in the Pacific Ocean and especially in the Tasman Sea are under no obligation to send New Zealand reports on the weather they are experiencing; they have done it of their own accord, and as a sort of quid pro quo for the weather reports which they have received from the Dominion, which possess value to them. The readings in the Tasman Sea are of the first importance, for it is from this direction that the big storms come. The approach of a low-pres-sure area can be plotted by the Dominion Meteorologist from the information which he receives from voluntary observers afloat iu ships crossing the Tasman. The disquiet now felt is due to the fact that the cessation of these reports from New Zealand is certain to have a bad effect upon the commanders of the various vessels, and that they may cease to trouble to keep the Dominion advised of the weather conditions about them. “The move is also not a true economy,” said the scientist. "For the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research pays the Post Office £640 a year for this service, so that the cessation of the reports is a mere matter of departmental book-keeping-The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research spends less, but the Post Office receives less. The cost to the Post Office of transmitting these messages would be infinitesimal, perhaps a few pence for power.”