The first book about the weather that I had was by the Bartlett brothers -
this must have been about 1948. I think it was called " Signpost to the
Weather" . Sadly, I think I binned it many years ago. The most interesting
feature of it was a broad brush forecast for each month , broken down into
4 week periods( which Keith mentioned)- most of which I have forgotten. The
only bits I remember were that cold spells were forecast for the middle of
both January and February with unsettled weather for the first and fourth
weeks. I think the cold winters of the early 1940s probably influenced them.
I enjoyed reading Keith's item about them, most of which I didn't know.
They also wrote for the' London Evening Standard'
Peter Clarke
Ewell
"Keith Darlington" wrote in message
...
I've been throwing out some old documents on weather which have gathered
too much dust for my liking, and came across some notes I had made about
the Bartlett Brothers.

They were interested in weather forecasting and started up in 1934, so
the notes say. At the time there was a need for some simple kind of
weather forecasting, so they called themselves Professional Weather
Consultants and Long-range Weather Specialists in 1935.

After the war, they opened a Weather Exhibition for the general public
between 1946 and 1947.

The method they appeared to use was to consult thousands of charts to
see what type of weather usually occurred during the period of a week.
(I would call that finding the 'average weather' for the period).
Then there were the 'unusual weeks' in which the pendulum of weather
swung away from the average weather. I'm not clear how they decided
whether the forecast-week was to have 'average' or 'unusual' weather.
And if I remember rightly, they didn't explain how they made this
decision.

We shouldn't forget that this was a time of simple metorology. The
brothers, D. and K. Bartlett, were probably among the first weather
consultants in Britain, and because of this, enjoyed a good amount of
patronage from the press, leaders of industry, members of the
services and politicians.

Bartlett? Bartlett?. doesn't that name ring a bell somewhere?

Cheers, Keith