A Book About Pacific Rain
p. 99 · Read in the full issue
complains about the weather, but fortunately there are some people who do something about it.
Among them are Dr. H. C. Brookfield and Doreen Hart, of the Australian National University, whose painstaking study, “Rainfall in the Tropical Southwest Pacific", is a valuable contribution to knowledge of weather patterns from West New Guinea to Fiji. Planters and small-ship operators, as well as residents, will find it useful to study the detailed rainfall figures from almost 1,000 stations.
Gatherers of rainfall statistics are made of dedicated stuff and even the non-specialist reader will appreciate the difficulties that must have been faced in collecting the information for this study.
Because of World War II and its aftermath there were 10-year gaps in recordings in many areas; in other areas recordings were made only during the brief life of mining camps and wartime bases.
There are few climatological stations operated by specially trained staff in the whole of the South Pacific, so that the bulk of the recording is still in the hands of amateurs.
“Efficiency varies greatly,” say the authors, “especially as some gauges are often read by native employees, and this happens most frequently when it is raining . . .” Thus more weather research is needed
in the South Pacific, not less.-
Rob W.
(RAINFALL IN THE TROPICAL SOUTHWEST PACIFIC. Australian National University Press, Canberra. SA3).