MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW 31 1 JUNE, 1924
as there are no stations equipped with the necessary a paratus within the section, but at the central office of t l e Weather Bureau at Washington, which was consid- erably out of the ath of the storm, a wind velocity of
At this same time the barometric pressure was 29.87 inches, which rose rapidly to 29.96 within 15 minutes, but fell to 29.86 inches at 4 p. m. Within a period of less than 15 minutes the wind had fallen and a perfect calm prevailed, with a clearing sky. The rainfall at three cooperating stations-Cheltenham, La Plata, and Ferry Landing-was 0.38, 0.34, and 0.19 inches, res ectively, and durin the ni ht there were
general over the area, some places east of Washin ton re orting stones as large as walnuts. A light hail fefl in d h i n g t o n at the be y i n g of the storm. harles Counties the most destruc- tive wind was from the northwest, while in Prince Georges Count the wind wai3 most severe from the southwest. In C 89 vert County on the east side of the Patuxent River, the writer found that both the southeast and northwest winds did about equal damage. In some local- ities lar e trees were twisted off and scattered in all direc-
otherwise the storm as a whole was B straight-line blow. At Cheltenham an entire piece of virgin forest, con- of la e oaks of several feet in diameter, was
$%$% t el y by own down. At the same place a church was comp etely moved from its foundations while filled with eople. Very few homes were destroyed, most of
trees, many of them a century old, around practically every house in the path of the storm were uprooted. Tobacco barns met with destruction throughout the area, and this is the direct cause of the h' h moneta
cured tobacco awaiting shipment. In Calvert County there were 64 tobacco barns destroyed, with a loss of over $GO,OOO for the buildings alone, as no tornado insurance is carried in that part of the East. The loss of cured tobacco will probably amount to $100,000 in this county. In Prince Georges Count approximately 80 barns were destroyed, with a
loss oJover $200,000, while in St. Marys and Charles Counties over 50 barns and contents were destroyed, with a loss of $150,000. The loss of orchards, fruit, stock, fences, timber, etc., will approximate $100,000.
36 miles was recor B ed at 3 p. m.
about 2 inc il es of additional rain f all. Hal I also was quite
In St. M a y and
tions, w % ich would possibly indicate tornadic action; but
the a! amage being confined to porches and roofs, but
T losses, as practically every barn was partial P y filled wit
In many cases entire orchards were uprooted, the
writer havlng seen one with the trees blown over in MWB
with perfect recision. Hundreds of telephone poles wem
f;
down, and t E e matw of trees, branches, oles, and wire
ublic roads impassable for several ays. The loss companies will run into many thousands
E
At Chess eake Beach, a summer resort on the east side of the ay, in Calvert County, which was crowded with patrons, considerable damage was done by the de- struction of cottages, piers, and boardwalk. ' Falling trees and limbs wrecked a lar e number of parked auto-
number of lives, estimated to be about 10, were lost, mobiles and endangered the f ives of the occupanta. A
on the Potomac, Patuxent,
One peculiarity of the storm was that the level country bordering the Patuxxent River, on the west and east, was singularly free from damage, while the sections back from the river received the entire brunt of the storm. The water on the eastern side of the Patuent River, which is over one-half mile wide at this oint, was backed up
from a road which parallels the river. At one place the writer noticed a barn which had been blown down by the southwest wind and a scant quarter of a mile off to the east another barn blown down b a
feet from the door of a public-school house, while smaller trees in the rear of the buildino were untouched, not even having branches broken off. keports of streaks of severe wind velocities of this kind were very common. This storm, covering much of the tobacco belt of south- ern Maryland, strikes a severe blow to the farmers who raise only tobacco of the famous Maryland t e. The
so that it overflowed and washe R away the surfacing
northwest wind. A large oak tree was uprooted but a 9 ew
loss of over one-half of the reent barns in t l? is section will prevent man farmers f rom growing tobacco this season, as it will g e impossible to reconstruct the build- ings for the housing of the 1924 crops, which begins with August 1.
RECORD CLOUDBURST FLOOD IN CARTER COUNTY, TENN., JUNE 13, 1924
' cg'* c77- c768) By WARREN R. KINO, District Engineer, U. S. Geological Survey
One of the most terrific rainstorms ever recorded in eastern Tennessee descended upon the small mountain villages of Cardens Bluff, Siam, and Hunter and the sur-
rounding region in Carter County during the night of June 13, 1924. This torrential cloudburst caused the loss of 11 lives, severely injured several ersope, .and dam-
dollars. The scene of the disaster lies just east of Eliza- bethton, along Watauga River, about 20 miles east of Johnson City. The greatest devastation was wrou ht in a nearly oval
Hunter and Cardens Bluff. Within this area roads and highways were rendered impassable, many sections being completely w d e d out and bridges destro ed; houses
aged property to the extent of more t % an half a million
b
area containing about 50 s uare mi Y es, the ma'or axis of which extends from nort 4. west to southeast etween
were swept away; and hundreds of acrea o .y farm land
were covered with rock and d6bris. The mount,ain cli- vision of the Southern Railwav, which runs paridle1 to Watauga River throughout this area, suffered heavy damage. In at least 50 places the track was either swe t into the river or was covered with 1 to 5 feet of ear& and rock, and many bridges and trestles were washed away. The railroad officials detailed more than
500 men to clear up the wreckage and rebuild the track, and within 6 days after the storm trains were again run- nin on schedule time. &wing to the comparatively small size of the area covered by the storm, there was no extreme flood on either Watauga River or Doe River, whose channels were more than adequate to carry the flood water, and the bulk of the damage came from floods on small trib- utaries and from hillside wash.
Jurw, 1924 3 12 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW
statement is shown by deep ashes or scars, almost re- sembliq cuts from a hydraufic jet, that were cut into the hillsides a t places where there had been no depres- sion or watercourse. The torrents and landslides that cut these gashes carried everything with them to the foot of the slopes, leaving the underlying rock entirely bare. (See fie. 1-3.)
The region M one of very steep slopes and most of it is heavily timbered. A slide once started gained momentum rapidly and struck with tremendous force. Some single slides carried thousands of tons of rock, earth, trees, and debris down to the lowlands and into the river channel. The hillside scars left by these slides ran e in width from
of them can be seen. Immediately on learning of the flood the writer, ac- companied by P. P. Livin ton and D. B. Ventres, of the
Survey started for Elisabethton. The party amved there about 1 p. m. on Sunday, June 15, and collec.ted such information as could be obtained concerning the nature and extent of the storm and the run-off. Gagipg stations are operated by the United States Geologwal Survey in cooperation mth the United States Engineers Corps and the Tennessee Geological Survey a t
10 to 100 feet, and from eome points no k ess than a dozen
Chattanooga office of t % e United States GeoloGical
points in this region:
Watauga River at Butler, Tenn. Watauga River at Elizabethton, Tenn. Doe River a t Valley Forge, Tenn. Each of these stations was visited as soon as ossible,
meters, the water surface was marked, and high-water marks were placed in the vicinity. Level lines were afterward run to determine the slope of thtvwater surface at the time of the measurements and the slo e of the
ways from each gaging station. Complete cross sections were obtained at each gaging station up to the high-water
line. Most of the cross sections at the gaging stations were typical of particular stretches of the rivers, and as
the streams were still high and no boats were available no other cross sections could be taken. It is believed, however, that for a rough approximation, which is all that was desired, no serious error was introduced because additional cross sections were not taken a t other points. h m the discharge measurements and the slo e of the water surface at the time, the value of the coe I cient nu in Kutters formula was obtained at each point, and from
the South folloY For of Holston River at Bluff City, Tenn.
discharge measurements were made by means o P current
high-water limes for a length of about 1,000 P eet both
14 Eastem Tennessee on the evening of June 13 was Just within a region of unsettled weatha alth local thunderstorms. The barometer was low m y from t b lower Mhouri Valley eastward to the Atlantic and there were two arena of still lower urn within the general area, one over North Carolha, the other over southern IllinorThe wlnd~ovep North Carollna and easternTennessee werelight andmatlysoutherly. The have been more apparent than real. The torren-
t=- doubtlean the d t of %lent vedieal convection in warm motst alr cur- rents thst prevailed at the ti- and plSCe.-EdiW.
of two clouds mesting m
the high-water slo e and cross sections, with the value
There are three standard rain ga es in the vicinity- two owned b the United States % eather Bureau a t Bluff City an8Elixabethton and one at the plant of the Watauga Power Co. above Siam. The rainfall for the stonn recorded at these points was 1.62, 1.00. and 11.24
inches, respectively. At all other oints data as to the
over the storm area and noting the precipitation in tubs, jars, buckefs, or other receptacles, that were standing out in the open air in such a position as to catch the normal rain and by making careful inquiry of the resi- denh as to whether these receptacles had contained any water before the storm or whether thay had been dis- turbed afterwards. All this information was obtained within four days after the storm, during which there had been no more rain. No account was taken of evapora- tion, which might well have amounted to several hun- dredths of an mch, as the days had been warm and sultry. Considerable care waa taken to et correct data.
The greatest rainfall was found at Cardens Blul, where on June 17, three days after the rain, a depth of 14.9E
inches was measured 111 a 20-gallon stone crock standin in an open space 25 feet from a farm house. This croc had been washed and set out in the sun to dry late in the
tdternoon preceding the storm and had not been molested subsequently. According to statements of the inhabitants living in the center of the devastated area, the storm began at about 6:30 p. m. in the form of violent hail, which luted only a few minutes; then a very hea rain set in, which
oclock, ap roximRtely three and one-third hours. It
til 12:30 a. m., when a second %ard rain egan that lasted until 2:30 a. m. June 14. By far the greater part of .the rain fell during the first storm; in fact, the obser- vations indicate that a t least 12 inches of the 15 inches recorded a t Cardens Bluff fell dur that period of three and one-third hours. At Siam an Y at the power plant, where the rainfall ampunted o about 11 mches, there wae no second storm, and this entire amount fell in three and one-half to four hours, as is further indicated by head-water readings taken at the power plant each hour during the night. These readings are given below:
of n thus derived, t 5 e crest discharge was computed.
rainfall and its distribution were o %I tained by traveling
and check observations were obtained w % erever ossible.
E
continued without interruption or % a atement until 10
then subs1 2 ed appreciably, althou-h not alto ether, un-
Q
June 13, 1924: Head-water gage
6 p .m _______________ 0.1 7 p .m _______________ .1 8 p .m _________--____ 3.6 9 p .m _______________ 4.8 10p.m ______________ 6.0 11p.m ______________ 5 .4 12p.m ______________ 4.1
June 14, 1924: Head-ratar gage
l a .m _______________ 3.8 2 a .m ____--_________ 3.6 3 a .m _______________ 3.3 4 a .m _______________ 3.2 5 a .m _______________ 3.2 6 a .m _______________ 3.2 7 e .m _______________ 3.2 8 a .m _______________ 3.1 9 a .m _______________ 3.1 10a.m ______________ 3.0
It will be noted that the crest of the run-off occurred at this point about 10 oclock in the evenin * * *
height of the river above the crest of the Watauga Power Co.s dam, and it was found to be 6.24 feet. Flash boards 3 feet high, which were on the dam before the storm, failed earl 111 the storm, owing to the immanse uantity of heavy At, leaving only one short section %out 25 feet in 1 th, which was badly damaged. !I%; spillwa section 0-s dam is of the gravity type, with
A line of levels was run to determine t f e maximum
a roun B ed crest, on which B coefficient of 3.40 was used
. II
FIQ. 2
FIQ. 3
JUNE, 1924 YON!ITILY WEATHER REVIEW 818
Watauga __________________ Watauga __________________ Watauga __________________ Doe ....................... South Fork of Holston Riper.
in the Francis weir formula to determine the discharge. It is assumed that the maximum stage of 6.24 feet oc- curred about 9:45 p. m., the discharge at that time h e ing 12,000 cubic feet per second. It IS believed that the flow u to that. time came from a point below the mouth
The drainage area between the mouth of Cobb Creek and. the power dam as measured from the topographic map is 32 square miles, and t.he run-off was therefore 375 second-feet to the square mile. The draina e area, including Cobb Creek and ever thing below Butler, would be 46 square miles, and t z- e maxlmum rate of run-off would be correspondinglv re- duced to 2Gl second-feet to the square mile if cobb Creek is assumed to have contributed t.0 this peak dis- charge. It is reasonably certain that the flow above Butler did not enter into this rate of dischar e, as it would require an average velocity in Watau a giver of 5 feet a second for the flow a t Butler to reach t E e Watauga Power Dam in three hours, and the maxinium flow at the dam occurred three hours after the rain began. I t seems more than probable that this maximum discharge was derived entirely froni the area below Cobb Creek. The maximum discharge at the dam and other points in this region, as determined by this investigation, is given below.
of Cob % Creek, which is 9 miles upstream from the dam.
Butler ____________ 6.71 Power dam. - _____ 6. 24
Elirabethton ______ 13.40 Valley Forge ______ 6.70 Bluff City ________ 7.25
An attem t was made to obtain data on .the run-&
the region of highest rainfall, but on all such stream the. slo e was so steep and the amount of rock, trees, and othw d&is carried by the floods so great that nothin ~b .
sembling an accurate estimate of maximum run-offwd ossible. All hope of getting any such figures was there- fore abandoned. A very striking illustration of this oint is the small ravine at Cardens Bluff, where two Rouses were demolished and nine of the occupmta drowned. A careful esamination of this ravine indicatka that ite total catchment area does not exceed 15 acres. One of the inhabitants mho escaped stated that a wall of water, rock, and earth 8 to 10 feet in height crashed into these houses without erceptible warning, totally
The accompanyin illustrations (figs. 1, 2, and 3) show something of %e force of this record cloudburst and the resulting damage. No accurate estimate of the damage to roperty has
that it was at least half a million dollars.
of some of t 1 e smaller tributaries that lie wholly within,
wreckin them. He himsel P was thrown 30 feet or more by the B orce of the blow and was severly injured.
been made, but the best information availa \ le indicatee
6500
1% 3&m bo00 4aoo
14n 15.2 92 375 270 111
I132 37.9 8% la e
I
I Total drainage area of stream.
I I
NOTES, ABSTRACTS, AND REVIEWS
TROPICAL CYCLONES LIQHTNINQ EXPLODES DYNAMITE
[Reprinted from Nature, London, June 28.1924, p. 9301
In his residential address to the Section of Physics and Matfematics of the Tenth Indian Science Con ess, Dr. S. K. Banerji reviewed the present position o Y our knowledge regarding the origin and causes of tropical c clones. The contributions to this branch of meteor- orogy .of Ham, Lodge, Dines, Bjerknes, and Shaw are considered and none of them found to give a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. The recent work of Shaw contained in hs essay The Birth and Death of Cyclones naturally received the most attention. Doctor Banerji considers that the air currents on the two sides of the trough of low pressure which exist over northern India durino the monsoon ma be the
during that season, but he is unable to acce t Shaws explanation of the subse uent develo ment an $ progress
siders that many more data, es ecially from the upper air, are required before much fur t i er progress can be made.
origin of the storms which7orm at the head o r the bay
in the development of %e theory o P cyclones, but con-
Six men were instantly killed a t a rock quarry 7 miles south of Winston-Salem, N. C., on June 24, 1924.
The men had sought shelter from a assing electric storm in a temporary office structure in w El ch was stored a quantity of dynamite. Lightning struck a near-by tree and in some..manner not clearly understood, exploded the d amite. The office structure was fired, aa were also inflammable parts of an automobile that was parked near by. The bodies of the men were badly mangled and burned. The ex losion was witnessed by persons at a distance.-iVeu!s-O $ server, Raleigh, N. C.
WEATHER CONDITIONS IN THE POLAR REQIONS AND AMUNDSENS POLAR FLIQHT
[Reprinted from The MeteoroloElcal Mngazine. 6Q, No. 701, June, lW4, p. 1167.1
In the Tidens Te a for March, 1924, there was an
region, written by Doctor Hesselberg in view of Amund- account of the weat 5 er conditions in the north polar