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READING THE WEATHER

[Illustration: SHOWER BEHIND VALLEY FORGE

_Courtesy of Richard F. Warren_]


READING THE WEATHER

by

T. MORRIS LONGSTRETH

Illustrated with Photographs by Richard F. Warren

Outing Handbooks
Number 43







New York
Outing Publishing Company
MCMXV

Copyright, 1915, by
Outing Publishing Company
All rights reserved.




  DEDICATED
  with love, to my grandmother
  MARY GIBSON HALDEMAN
  herself responsible for so
  much sunshine.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                           PAGE

  FORECAST                                             i

     I OUR WELL-ORDERED ATMOSPHERE                    11

    II THE CLEAR DAY                                  20

   III THE STORM CYCLE                                42

    IV SKY SIGNS FOR CAMPERS                          64
       THE CLOUDS                                     65
       THE WINDS                                      76
       TEMPERATURES                                   86
       RAIN AND SNOW                                  99
       DEW AND FROST                                 112
       THE THUNDERSTORM EXPOSED                      116
       THE TORNADO                                   129
       THE HURRICANE                                 133
       THE CLOUDBURST                                139
       THE HALO                                      140

     V THE BAROMETER                                 147

    VI THE SEASONS                                   157

   VII THE WEATHER BUREAU                            167

  VIII A CHAPTER OF EXPLOSIONS                       175
       CONDENSATIONS                                 185
       SIGNS OF FAIR WEATHER                         185
       SIGNS OF COMING STORM                         187
       SIGNS OF CLEARING                             189
       WHEN WILL IT RAIN?                            190
       SIGNS OF TEMPERATURE CHANGE                   191
       SOME UNSOLVED WEATHER PROBLEMS                192
       WHAT THE WEATHER FLAGS MEAN                   193
       OUR FOUR WORLD'S RECORDS,--AND OTHERS         195




ILLUSTRATIONS


    Shower Behind Valley Forge            _Frontispiece_

                                                    PAGE

    Cirrus Deepening to Cirro-Stratus                 16

    Cirro Stratus with Cirro-Cumulus Beneath          32

    Cirro-Cumulus to Alto-Stratus                     48

    Alto-Stratus                                      80

    Cumulus                                           96

    Stratus                                          128

    Nimbus                                           160




FORECAST


Science is certainly coming into her own nowadays,--and into everybody
else's. Every activity of man and most of Nature's have felt her
quickening hand. Her eye is upon the rest. Drinking is going out because
the drinker is inefficient. The fly is going out because he carries germs.
And for everything that goes out something else comes in that makes people
healthier and more comfortable, and, perhaps, wiser.

One strange thing about this flood-tide of science is that it overwhelms
the old, buttressed superstitions the easiest of all, once it really sets
about it. For instance, nothing could have been better fortified for
centuries than the fact that night air is injurious and should be shut out
of house. Then, science turned its eye upon night air, found it a little
cooler, a trifle moister, and somewhat cleaner than day air with the
result that we all invite it indoors, now, and even go out to meet it.

Once interested in the air, science soon began to take up that
commonplace but baffling phase of it called the weather. Now, of all
matters under the sun the weather was the deepest intrenched in
superstition and hearsay. From the era of Noah it had been made the
subject of more remarks unrelieved by common sense than any other. It was
at once the commonest topic for conversation and the rarest for thought.
Considering the opportunities for study of the weather this conclusion, we
must admit, is more surprising than complimentary to the human race. But
it is so. The fact that science had to face was this: that the weather had
been and remained a tremendous, dimly-recognized factor in our level of
living. So talk about it all must. And science set about finding some easy
fundamental truths to talk instead of the hereditary gossip about
old-fashioned winters or the usual meaningless conversational coin.

Two groups of men had always known a good deal about the weather from
experience: the sailor had to know it to save his life, and the farmer had
to cultivate a weather eye along with his early peas. But the ordinary
business man (and wife), the town-dweller, and even the suburbanite knew
so few of the proven facts that the weather from day to day, from hour to
hour, was a continual puzzle to them. The rain not only fell upon the
just and unjust but it fell unquestioned, or misunderstood.

At last Science established some sort of a Weather Bureau in 1870, in our
country, and after this had triumphed over great handicaps, the Government
set it upon its present footing in 1891. An intelligent interest in the
weather was in likelihood of being aroused by maps, pamphlets, frost and
flood warnings that saved dollars and lives. Then suddenly, or almost
suddenly, a new force was felt in every community. It was the call of
outdoors. The new land of woods and lakes was explored. Men learned that
living by bread alone (without air) made a very stuffy existence. Hence
the man in town opened all his windows at night, the suburban majority
planned to build sleeping porches, the youngsters begged to go to camp,
their fathers went hunting and fishing in increasing numbers, and, most
important of all, the fathers' wives began to accompany them into the
woods.

Thus, living has been turned inside out,--the very state of things that
old scientist Plato recommended some thirty thousand moons ago. And among
the manifestations of nature the weather is holding its place, important
and even fascinating. For the person who most depends on umbrellas and the
subway in the city needs to watch the sky most carefully in the woods.
That old academic question as to whether it be wise or foolish to come in
out of the wet was never settled by the wilderness veteran. The veteran's
wife settles it very quickly. She considers the cloud. When the commuter
goes camping he rightly likes his comforts. A wet skin is not one of
these. Therefore he studies the feel of the wind.

And so it comes about that the person who talks about storm centers and
areas of high pressure and cumulus clouds is no longer regarded as
slightly unhinged. Men are eager to learn the laws of the snowstorm and
the cold wave; for, with the knowledge that snow is not poison and cold
not necessarily discomfort, January has been opened up for enjoyments that
July could never give.

Bookwriting and camping are both explained by the same fact,--a certain
fondness for the thing. I wanted to see the commoner weather pinned down
to facts. The following chapters resulted. They constitute a