Weather Ships

The North Atlantic is chock-full of weather and crisscrossed by weather-sensitive airplanes, but islands for weathermen to perch on are few and far between. Last week, in London, the PICAO (Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization) decided to station 13 weather ships at places where islands ought to be. During the war, the U.S. and Britain kept 20 weather ships in operation. Now these have dwindled to four.

The weather ships will be scattered at 500-mile intervals around the landless region north of the Azores. They will not be anchored (most of the Atlantic is far too deep), but will cruise in 100-mile-wide circles. Their primary duty: to observe weather conditions by all known methods, including "radio sonde" balloons followed upward by radar. They will also give weather reports and radio "fixes" to both ships and airplanes.

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