The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1883-03-15
How Cold Waves Travel.

Cold waves, so called-a name for
which we are indebted to recent metoro-
logical scieuce-do not appear to move
in some instances much faster than a
railroad express train. They vary how
ever, in their rate of motion. Where do
they come from? It 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 regions farther
north, that the cold continued all the
way to Eastern Alaska, and on to
Behring Strait with even Il greater degree
of intensity. In fact the coolest region is
probably the wide expanse west, and
especially northwest, of Hudson's Bay,
in the neighborhood Of the magnetic
pole. A ''cold wave" is a wave OF
heavy air, following the rarifed track
of "iow barometer" and changing the
raritiel and milder atmosphere (Which
is usually also stormy to one of clear.
cold skies: a heavy air. full of tonic pow
er, and exhilerating and hunger-produ.
cling to sound and healthy animal life.
The establishment of the modern gov
eminent weather observation stations,
with their appliances, including the
electric telegram and the daily press.
has enabled the country to see and
comprehend something of the move
ments of these frequent cold
waves. The movement is as marked as
the advance of veritable sea wave.
The telegraph heralds its start from the
Rocky mountains it always seems to be-
having its origin much farther north),
and ITO of3u oov, ho fipcoA 1iko fhot
ola railroad train. Its speed varies
from from forty to sixty, or sometimes
even seventy, miles an hour; usually 1t
would seem about fifty. 1t rolls over
the country, real wave, an areial coun-
terpart, 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 waters OF
the Asiatic shore, and the equally frigid
wi DIS of the American mainland in the
Arctic circle, to our Atlantic coast-its
breadth reaching all the way from Nova
Scotia to Cape Hatteras, and frequently
making its chill presence felt as far solth
as Florida. The Bermudas-which. lie
just south of the Gulf steam, little over
800 miles almost due east of Charleston
feel the influence of our "cold waves
very preceptibly. That solitary little
group of small, low-flying coral islands
which can be reached by steamer from
New York in the same time thatit would
take to go to Savannah, happen to lie on
the leeWard side of the Gulfstream; and
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 modities the
north wind, it can not quite rob it of all
its intrinsic character-and the result is
wind that may be at times COO, and fire.
quentlv boisterous. but never real cold;
and those lonely islands, surrounded by
wide-reacl,ing coral reefs, have all win
ter pleasant climate of spring. That is
almost all that they, or the more south
ern islands of t le Bermudas, ever know
of our winter "cold waves" These
come in an almost rhythmical succession,
and have their causes, doubtless, as pc.
ten as those of the oceans tides, which
they etrikingly resemble.