short and spotty observational records, but more importantly, perhaps, in certain preconceived ideas which have tended to obscure the essentials. Confronted, then, with these two conditions, the Task Force Meteorologist—along with the various Task Force weather units——must assume the responsibility of detecting, evaluating, and predicting the many possible variations from those weather conditions which are predictable on the basis of the spotty records from the past; and, because the weather is tropical, the problem is compounded. Historically, explorers, sailors, and scientists first became acquainted with tropical weather in the neighborhood of the great land masses—-Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. With few excevtions, the torrid portions of these regions are subject to rather noticeable seasonal variations in both wind and weather. the wet seasons are spoken of as monsoons. In some regions, In all events, it has been general knowledge for centuries that rain tends to occur in most of these torrid areas in association with specific wind direc-~ tions and seasons. The peoples of the high latitudes of Europe and America have found nothing surprising in this. Living on large, con- tinental land masses they have historically adjusted--in both the physiological and psychological sense--to far greater seasonal extremes, particularly in temperatures. As a result, there has grown in the minds of most men a disposition to expect well-marked season- al variations in winds and weather in all tropical regions, even in tropical regions far removed from continental land masses, 159