The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-26 00:00:00

_...21.6100.....„0"5ie1iz, • 7-1
"

A NEW WEATHER THEORY.

The TiM4B of Saturday (19th) publishes the following
letter:—

Sir,—l suppose everybody on occasion enacts the
part of weather prophet, and sometimes his prediction
comes true; but if I were to pose in that character in
your columns, and proceed to make the melancholy
claim of having long foretold the present dismal season,
I should probably get a shrug for my conceit, if not a
laugh for my folly. Dropping, then, the prophet's
mantle, and arming myself only with the chronicler's
pen, I would like to place on record one or two results
of careful observations I have made extending over
nearly thirty summers.
The first of these results is that dry and wet periods
succeed one another in alternate waves of nearly equal
length. Not that this equality of duration is quite
absolute, or that the wave of one period is exactly the
facsimile of that of a corresponding period at an
earlier or a later time ; but there is enough of
regularity and uniformity about the waves to make tl-43
family likeness clearly discernible to any eye that looks
for it. .

These periods extend over three whole years for
each, and the following simple rules will enalale
anyone to work out the several cycles of years for him-
self :

1. When the number representing any given year
is even and exactly divisible by three, that year is the
middle one of three cold and wet summers.

2. When the number representing the year is odd
and divisible by three, then that year is the middle
one of a triad of dry and hot summers.

For example, 18.00 is even and divisible by three,
and the prevailing characteristic of the three years
1859, 1860, 1861 was wet, or wet and cold; and, again,
1E63 is odd and divisible by three, and everybody re-
members 1862, 1863, and 1864 as bright, hot, and dry
summers.

Taking now a range of 27 years over which my own
personal observations extend, and applying the rules
just given, the wet and cold triads were 1853-5,
1859-61;1865-7, 1871-3, and 1877-9, while the dry and
hot triads were 1856-8, 1862-4, 1868-71, and 1874-6 ;
and without claiming that no single year broke
loose from this very simple order of seasons, I fear-
lessly maintain that all the markedly wet or dry
summers of the past 27 years fall accurately within
some wet or dry period as given above; so that no very
wet year falls in what should have been a dry period,
nor any very dry year in what hypothetically was a
wet period.
This hypothesis receives considerable confirmation
from an examination of the average prices of corn
during the years already referred to. Ordinarily after
a wet summer the next year's averages ought to be
high, and after a dry summer the reverse. New it is a
fact that high averages prevailed from 1854 to 1856,
and low from 1857 to 1859; they were up again during
1860-2, down in 1863-5, up in 1866-8, down in 1869.72,
up in 1873.4, and down in 1875-7.
How far these cycles may be shown to coincide with
the greater cycle of 11 or 12 years which is observed in
the maxima and minima of spots on the sun's surface is
more than I have time now to inquire; but my good
neighbours at Sherborne know that for some two or
three years past I have been pointing out to them in
public lectures most of the things I have spoken of in
this letter, and I have only to regret that my " fore-
casts " have been more than borne out by the facto.
So much for chronicle. Now for one word of pre-
diction. The number 1881 is odd and divisible by 3;
and if there is anything in my theory, that year ought
to be the middle one in a triad of hot and dry summers.
I am looking forward, therefore, with much confidence
to a good summer in 1880, followed by two similarly
good ones in 1881. and 1882; and, for the sake of every
interest in this country, I earnestly hope my expecta-
tion may not be disappointed.
HENRY ROE, Fa A S.
Poyntington Rectory, Sherbourne, July 15 (St. Swithin).

The Tima of Wednesday published the following
letter on the subject of the weather in bygone days :
" Str,—The following extracts from the " Diary " of Pepys
for the yearl663 may have some interest for those who are
calculating cycles and making forecasts, or they may show
the despondent that the country has emerged from similar
atmospherical disturbances such as those with which we are
now afflicted :

"July I.—This morning it rained so hard, though it was
fair yesterday, and we are therefore in hopes of having tome
fair weather, which we have wanted these three months.

"July 7.—ln Mr. Pett's garden I eat some of the first
cherries I have eat this year.
"July B—l hear not what will become of the corn this
year, we having had but two fair days these many mouths.
"July 21.—This day the Parliament kept a fast for the
present unseasonable weather.

"August 23.—C01d all night and this morning, and a very
great frost, they say. abroad, which is much,
.having had no
summer at all almost."

Evelyn, in his " Diary " or the same year, only mentions
the subject once. Under date of July 16, he says :—" A
most extraordinary wet and cold season." CLABRY.