Keeping Track Of

Storms

Need For Meteorological Network

the well-known New Zealand rep » » resentative of Pan-American Air ways, Mr. Harold Gatty, was in Sydney recently, he said tlxat the most import ant work yet to be done, in providing for an efficient aviation service across J! n across the Central South was the crea “ tion of a complete meteorological organ isation.

No service could be run with confidence, here or anywhere else, unless the oper ators were provided with accurate re ports of the weather ahead. The wider the area covered, and the more numerous the reporting points, the more confident could the pilot be in setting out on his long flight over the oceans.

Mr. Gatty said that there were two main difficulties in the Pacific —the great number of small Administrations, whose activities had to be co-ordinated, and irregular reports. He, and others inter ested, had received the most willing as sistance from practically all Islands Ad ministrations; all that was needed was a central directing authority. But this was vital, and not much had yet been done in this direction.

The need for frequent, regular reports was obvious. There were times when some of the smaller and more isolated radio stations were closed, for short periods. That made accurate weather charting impossible—it might happen that the report of a particular station, on a particular day, would provide essential in formation about the extent and direction of a storm.