The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-09-08 00:00:00

THE RECENT STORMS.

In the course of Satnrday night and Sunday a severe
gale was experienced in nearly all parts of the kingdom.
The first signs of the approaching storm were visible
on Saturday morning, when the baromeber was falling
very rapidly on our south-west coasts, with increasing
southeasterly winds, and dull, rainy weather. As the
day advanced the fall of the mercury became still
more rapid, and extended over the whole country,
while the wind increased to a severe gale in the south.
west of England. At six o'clock in the evening the
centre of a very deep depression was found to be lying
off the south of Ireland; and as the barometer
at Valentia stood as low as 28•5 in , while that in
London was about 29 4in., and that at Rochefort, in
the west of France, was nearly 295 in., gradients over
our western and southern districts were already very
steep. In Scotland and the east of England the wind
remained light in force from the south eastward or
southward, and the weather fair, but in Ireland a
moderate to fresh gale from the eastward was reported,
while in the southwest of England there was a very
strong gale from the southward, with a heavy sea at
the mouth of the Channel. In the meantime rain was
falling in most parts of the western and southern coast.,
and at Androssan a thunderst ,rm was in progress.
In the course of the night the storm centre advanced
steadily in an easterly or east-north-easterly direc-
tion, and at eight o'clock on Sunday morning it lay
a little to the southward of Bembroke. Rough rainy
weather had by this time spread over the entire
country. In the Bay of Biscay there was a whole gale
from the westward, on the Channel coast a strong gale
from the south-westward, or southward, in the east of
England a fresh gale from the south-eastward, and in
Scotland an increasing easterly wind, In the south of
Ireland, however, the .barometer was rising again in
the rear of the disturbanca, and the wind had shifted
to north, from which quarter it was blowing with con-
siderable strength in the squalls. Over the United
Kingdom and north of France there was scarcely a
station at which rain was not falling, and the sea,
while rough generally, was exceptionally heavy at the
entrance of the Channel.

Unhappily for the farmers the storm was attended
by heavy rains, which cannot fail to have done serious
injury to such crops as may be standing. In Ireland
the rainfall reported on Sunday morning varit-d from
an inch to very nearly two inches, and in some places
the downpour still continued. Over Great Britain
there does not appear to have been so much rain, but
the south-western and southern districts have suffered
rather severely.

A Naples telegram says that on Saturday night
severe thunderstorms did immense damage at Grumo
Nevano, ten miles east of Naples, where heavy
deluges of rain undermined the foundations of the
houses. One fell, burying eleven people under the
ruins.

The Rome Correspondent of The Times says that
the storm on Sunday night was severely felt all over
Italy, Heavy rain fell at Milan, Verona, Venice,
Parma, Modena, Genoa, Florence, Leghorn, Perugia,
and other cities, as well as at Rome and Naples. ,In
the neigbbrurhood of the Lake of Como the torrents
were so much swollen that two railway bridges were
swept away and the lines otherwise damaged. The
storm worlaed considerable damage also at Pomigliano
and St. Anastasia, near Naples.

A Bordeaux telegram states that a terrific gale pre-
vailed in the Bay of Biscay on Saturday and Sun-
day. The Steam Navigation Company's steamer
Lapwing found four shipwrecked fishermen floating on
a small raft. Other fishing boats were wrecked with
loss of hands.