Connecticut western news., 1873-02-07
The Influence of the Gulf Stream on
 Storms

It is an observation, as old as Aris- totle, that the storms of the middle lat itudes in the Northern Hemisphere ad vance from west to east. This is obvi- ously partly due to the fact that the winds on their eastern sides are south erly, that they come from the equatorial regions, and hence are highly charged with aqueous vapor. This vapor is ab- solutely essential to the sustenance of the storm. Moreover, the law of storms requires that the southerly winds should enter the storm-vortex on the eastern side, and as this is the side on which the greatest quantity of vapor is found, and the side of greatest condensation, of the greatest evolution of latent heat, hence of the greatest aerial rarefaction and barometric fall, to this side the heavier air from the west will push as into great hollow. Thus do we actu- ally find that all storms, formed west of the Gulf Stream, are actually propagat- ed toward it. It may be argued from the above facts that the anti trade winds are thus maintained by storms necessarily making the circuit of the globe within the temperate zone. But in reality, instead of being the effect of storm influence, the anti-trades are originated by independent solar agency, as are the trades, and they are poten- tial and causal in producing the east ward progression of all cyclones. It must be conceded that the pressure of vast aerial currents does serve to force the meteor along with them as the river eddy is carried down stream with the water current; otherwise it is impossi- Ia fo flo o,.I of tropical hurricanes. While yet in the band of easterly-trade winds the storm will invariably work its way or be prop agated toward the most humid region, unless mechanically borne in another direction by the great atmospheric cur rent in which it is often imbedaed as an eddy in 8 river. The cyclone tracks over all the oceans lie in the central bands of the great ocean currents of high temperature and great evaporation and the band of cyclonic violence is often beautifully coterminous with the Thus, in the Pacific, the LOochoo Isl Siwo, the great Pacific Gulf Stream of most fearful typhoons; but the Ronin | III OAlO oul10 DuU O1 OllC extreme margin of the Kuro Siwo, have very mild and moderate storms. !" If a storm commences anywhere in the vi cinity of the Gulf Stream, it naturally tends toward that stream, because" as Loomis says, "here is the greatest amount of vapor to be precipitated, and when a storm has once encountered the Gulf Stream, it continues to follow that stream in it's progress eastward" Yes sells and Japanese junks, dismasted ir gales off the Asiatic coast, have beer drifted for many days in the current ot the Kuro Siwo, to the coast of Cali fornia, just as West India beans, cocoa nuts, and vegetables have been driftet to Iceland, Greenland, and Spitzbergen on the extension of the Gulf Stream According to all meteorological obsel vations of the tracks of storms, we ar' warranted in believing that cyclones and hurricanes do, as @ matter of fac and of atmospheric law, run on the ho currents of the sea as naturally as thu water-course clings to its bed. Practica seamen, though unable to explain tn
 fact, are always or, the lookout for thes' furious gales when sailing on the axia lines of the Gulf Stream, on the ho Mozambique current, (the Gulf Strean of the Indian Ocean, and on the dar] superheated waters of the Kuro Siwo o the Pacific. - zhe Popular Scienc
 MO7lthLy.