fronts write easily identified patterns on the chart. A build-up on the negative side usually heralds a warm front. A positive reading in most cases identifies the cold.
Freezing and sublimation (the direct conversion of vapor to ice) usually register a positive pattern. Melting and condensation touch off negative activity in the atmosphere..
Advantages looked for by Falconer in the more widespread use of the weather device include closer pin-pointing of cold and warm fronts on the weather map. It also can be used to indicate the presence of fronts high in the atmosphere which otherwise might go undetected. Falconer pointed out, too, that pen strokes across the chart can be used to count lightning flashes in the area.
Sharper short-range weather forecasts may result from the use of networks of these devices in weather stations across the country, he believes.
The mechanism ferrets out isolated showers and disturbances not otherwise detected by most instruments now used in ordinary weather stations, he said.
According to Falconer, the equipment can tip off weather men about the presence of disturbances which could be found otherwise only by radar. The G-E device, he pointed out, costs only a fraction of the price paid for radar equipment.
Work with the equipment was started in 1943 by Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer, the G-E scientist who discovered that artificial seeding of clouds could cause rain.