The Portland daily press., 1883-02-19
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How Cold Waves Travel.

Cold waves, SO called-a name for which
we are indebted to recent meteorological
science--do not appear to move, in some In
stances, much faster than railroad express
train. They vary, however, in their rate of
motion. Where do they come from? 1t is
not easy to say, 1t might be found, if one
could travel at express train speed from the
mountains of Montana and the frozen re-
gions farther north, that the cold contin.
ued all the way to eastern Alaska, and on to
Behring Strait, with even greater degree of
intensity. In fact, the coolest region is
probably the wide expanse west, and espe-
cially northwest, of Hudson's Bay, in the
neighborhood of the magnetic pole. "A
"cold wave'' is wave of heavy air, follow
ing the rarefed track of Glow barometer"
and changing the rarefed and milder atmos-
phere (which is usually also stormy to one
of clear, cold skies; heavy air, full of ton
ic power, and exhilaratin2 and huDger-pro-
ducing TO sound and healthy animal life.
The establishment of the modern Govern
ment weather observation stations, with
their appliances, including the electric tele-
graph and the daily press, has enabled the
country to see and comprehend something
of the movements of these frequent c, Id
waves. The movement is as marked as the
advance of veritable sea wave 1t is ona
of the impressive facts of meteorologi cal
phenomena. The telegraph heralds its
start from the Rocky Mountains Git always
seems to begin there, though in fact it rare
lV does-haying its origin much farther
north, and its advance can be timed like
that of a railroad train. It's speed varies
from 40 to 60, or sometimes even 70, miles
an hour; usually it would seem about 80.
1t rolls over the country, real wave, an
aerial counterpart, on the shore, of its
congener, the tidal wave of the ocean
and its direction is usually from
the northwest to the southwest 1t
sweeps slowly down from the frozen
wastes of the Asiatic shore, and the equally
frigid wilds of the American mainland in
the Arctic circle, TO our Atlantic coast-in
breadth reaching all the way from Nova
Scotia to Cape Hatteras, and frequently
making its chill presence felt as far south as
Florida. The Bermudas-which lie Just
south of the Gulf Stream, little over six
hundred miles almost due east of Charleston
feel the Influences of our "cold waves''
very perceptibly. That solitary little group
of small, low-lying coral islands, which can
be reached by the steamer from New York
in the same time it would take to go to Say
annsh, happen to lie on the leward side OF
the Gulf Stream; aud that great thermal
current of the ocean forever saves them from
frost, and keeps them in spring foliage all
winter; but, while it finely tempers and
modifies the north wind, it cannot quite rob
il of all its intrinsic character-and the result
is wind that may be al times cool, and fire.
quently boisterous, but never really cold
and those lonely islands, surrounded by
widereaching coral reefs, have all winter a
pleasant climate of spring. That is almost
all that they, or the more southern islands
of the Bermudas, ever know of our winter
"cold waves" These come in an almost
rhythmical succession, and have their causes,
doubtless, as potent as those of the oceans
tides, which they strikingly resemble.