Hurricanes
p. 140 · Read in the full issue
Tests This Year Will Aim At—
One In The E[?]
For
Hurricanes
EFFORTS will be made this by the United States Wes Bureau to improve methods keeping track of hurricanes, v would enable it to supply earliei more accurate warnings to p<
living in their paths.
As soon as a hurricane is dete moving in from the Atlantic anr craft will fly over its top and a balloon-borne radio transm into the inner “eye”—which ma anything from a mile to 20 n across. As the wind circuls round this eye is inwards upwards, a balloon released in' eye should remain there as i hurricane moves along at its s age 15 to 25 knots.
Radio direction-finding staj along the coast will be ablJ obtain constant and accurate r bearings of the signals from hurricane-transmitter. Instrum coupled to that transmitter will! supply other information regan the hurricane —whether it is i creasing or decreasing in inten etc.
Some scientists think this me? of tracking will be more accu than the seismic method, which pends on recording the vibrat through sea and land, though latter method has advantages in early and more distant stages.
In addition to the balloon t method, floating radio transmit with instruments attached wil dropped at sea ahead of the get track of the hurricane. Si® from these will supply constant formation on air pressure and 3 thus provide another check of\ exact position of the hurries low-pressure centre at any mon These floating transmitters not new. They were used weather purposes during World 11, Others were used to signal, passage of enemy vessels thrr narrow channels. But for t reason they have not been piu much use for weather purposes t the war. Not very expensive, capable of operating for many or weeks they seem to offer § possibilities, in times of hurrio in the Islands, as an aid to accu tracking.
This year’s American experim in tracking hurricanes will be s to an investigation the US Wes Bureau has been carrying on: years—that of the possibility; breaking up or diverting hurrio in their early stages of formas using cloud-dusting methods.