Ten storms a year originate over the Rocky Mountain Plateau, north of Colorado. About twenty cross over from the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. And all our other storms, about forty each year, enter our country from the North Pacific by way of Washington and Oregon. Many of these drift across the northern tier of states without any great display of energy, at least before they reach the Lake region. But the majority loop down somewhat into the middle west as far south as Kansas, and then make their turn toward the inevitable St. Lawrence. They usually require four days to make the trip from coast to coast by this route, as also by the more direct northern route, because on that they travel more at leisure. But the storms from Texas, whose energy is greatest because of greater heat and moisture, occasionally speed from Oklahoma to New York in thirty-six hours. In summer all speeds are reduced. This is because the disparities in temperature are less. In winter where greater extremes of temperature are brought into conjunction the processes of the storm are all more violent. And it is a bit disheartening to know that a storm is aggravated to even greater endeavors by its own exertions. Its energy provides the conditions to stimulate greater energy, and, like a fire, it increases as it goes. If it did not run out of the zone which nourished it and proceed into another zone where conditions were distinctly discouraging the limits of the storm would be much extended, and vast territories would be devastated by the self-propelling combination of wind and water. To the generality of us the word storm means rain. To the scientist it means wind. In reality the cyclone is rare that crosses our country without causing rain somewhere along its track. The curiosity of the Weather Bureau to find out the paths of the storm centers is abundantly justified because it is along these paths that the heaviest rainfall and the severest winds occur. But whether or not there is precipitation on the path of the cyclone it is rated as a storm if there is a lowering of pressure and consequent wind-shift. The storm centers are not always well-defined, and quite often the circulation of the wind about them is not complete. Such cyclones never amount to much, although there is always the possibility of their closing in and developing a complete circulation with the attendant increase of energy. The incomplete cyclones over the desert and plateau regions are lame affairs, lacking interest and advancing timidly if at all. But once let them drift into a locality where they can be supplied with moist air, they pick up energy, keep a definite course, and advance with increasing speed.