The Meteorological Office occupies a dull set of rooms in Victoria Street over a shop, and, other than the latest weather chart, hung up outside the street door, there is nothing to intimate that the presiding wizards of the weather sit upstairs, and that if you are particularly anxious to have the latest information in their possession you have only to walk up and pay the nominal sum of one shilling.
Likewise you may receive the latest information by letter for the same fee, or by wiring to "Weather," London, the shilling fee and the cost of a telegraphic reply.
Farmers and others to whom the question of weather is a vital one, especially at the hay and harvest seasons, are supplied with harvest forecasts for the nominal sum of 2s. 6d. per quarter, in addition to the cost of the telegrams.
In addition to this, a set of forecasts is daily supplied to the newspapers, and about twenty-eight well-known agriculturists, for public exhibition in their neighbourhoods.
The system employed in making up the weather is of more than usual interest, and is worthy of some description.
In connection with the office are some 140 observing stations, including 17 belonging to the Royal Meteorological Society and 19 to the Scottish Meteorological Society. These stations are divided into classes according to the value and quantity of the observations supplied by them. Excepting the cases of telegraphic stations, which are subsidised by the central office, the observers are mostly volunteers who are interested in meteorology, and who provide their own instruments.
The office receives sixty telegraphic weather reports each morning, eighteen every afternoon, and twenty-nine each evening, in addition to an enormous mass of data supplied by volunteer and casual observers.
The forecast we are accustomed to find in our morning paper is compiled from the telegraphic reports of the subsidised stations. There is something peculiarly fascinating in the idea of the clerk of the weather scenting out a big gale and issuing a warning hours before its arrival on our coasts. One associates him with a prophet or witch, and very naturally wonders how it is done.
As a matter of fact forecast work is far from romantic, entails very great mental labour, excellent judgment, and great scientific knowledge and experience.
The forecasts are made three times a day—at 11 a.m., 3.30 p.m., and 8.30 p.m. They are, of course, based on the telegraphic reports and observations. The 8.30 p.m. forecast is made for the morning newspapers.