Weatherman

Preoccupied with President Roosevelt's money methods, the Senate paused for a few minutes last week to confirm the appointment of a new chief for a government service which, excepting only the Post Office Department, touches more closely the daily lives of more U. S. citizens than any other--the U. S. Weather Bureau.

Weatherman Willis Ray Gregg, born 54 years ago in Phoenix, N. Y. graduated from Cornell in 1903, joined the Weather Bureau next year. He was summoned to Washington headquarters in 1915, made chief of the Aerological Division two years later. Eight years ago he tackled the job of organizing the Bureau's service for commercial airways, has been at it ever since. He makes his debut as Bureau chief this week at the Aeronautical Sciences Institute Convention in Manhattan.

The intricate network of which he takes command was organized in 1870 as a function of the Signal Corps, transferred to the Department of Agriculture in 1891. Its first annual appropriation was $15,000. For the current fiscal year it got $3,731,235, of which about $450,000 will go for telegraph bills, most of the rest to pay some 1,000 employes. At more than 200 stations in the U. S., Canada, Alaska, the West Indies, notations are made twice daily of pressure, precipitation, wind, temperature. The results are wired in code to Washington, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, New Orleans, where forecasts are made. The Bureau insists that these forecasts are 90% accurate, complacently notes that gibes to the contrary are dwindling.

Weatherman Gregg's predecessor is Charles Frederick Marvin, a softspoken, bushy-browed old gentleman of 75 whose great hobby was the 13-month calendar, whose special aversion is long-range forecasting. He will be retained in an advisory capacity until he completes 50 years of service (end of this year).

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