The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-09
THE GREAT AUGUST RAIN.
The Immense Quantity of Water Which Fen
Over a Wide Area.

The Immense Quantity of Water Which Fen
Over Wide Area.
From the Hartford Comm Times
1t is not easy for anybody to realize, or even
to correctly imagine. the vast amount of water
which is poured out of the sky in great August
rain like this one, which, during the first three
or four days of the present month, has deluasd
so many and so widely separated parts of our
country. 1t is not easy to understand in the
'reallzlng' sense, however fully we NAV COM
prehend the fact intellectually, how so much
solid water can be suspended in the form of
invisible vapOr in the air True it is no longer
visible when it has been condensed in
the form of heavy rain clouds. but it was all
there, NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in the wide realm of
air-before 1t became thus condensed Take tbe
ending part of that great storm for an examine
what must have been the actual amount OF
water that was poured down, from Chicago to
Name, from Maryland and the Chic to the
White mountains! 1t rained seemingly as never
before. IN all those regions. Throughout tha
greater part of the middle States it made de-
structive river floods. In the region about
Sn!cago IL aInonhteG 10 precipitation of about
D inches. In Maryland it was not much less
and New York State received its share of the
general drenching. Here in Southern New
England the downpour such as was never
9Xceedeo-n indeed 1t was ever equaled.
In this immediate region the rain
fall In one continuous rain from,
Monday afterOon to o'clock Tuesday morning
amounted to almost six inches The great De-
tober rain, of the 1st and Cd of October, 1863,
which made such ruinous work throuehout
Connecticut, (chietly by the immense precipita-
ton on the second day. did not EXHIBIT such a
steady and tremendous downpour as that Of
Tuesday, August 4, 1885, between the hours az
l and 5 o'clock in the morning The volume af
this August rain is shown in the flooded streams.
which everywhere continue to be flooded long
after the usual time for rain floods to disappear
The Connecticut river itself has kept rising for
day and half after the storm the rain having
added about six feet to it's height It was
heavy rain in the White mountains the gauge
at the Signal service station on the summit
showing d. inches.
This great rain came inland from the Gulf of
Mexico Following the Mississippi valley north
ward, the storm central on Monday at De-
troit. 1t extended eastward all the way from
the Mississippi river to the Atlantic seaboard-
pouring as huge flood upon New England as
upon most of the great intermediate breadth Of
country
1t is impossible to estimate any such quantity
Oh water Even OF the amount that was poured
out upon our own little State it is impossible to
get any adequate idea. If we were to imagine
the area of Connecticut to be perfectly Tat,
level surface and the average amount OF rain
for that one storm, to be not five but not quite
three inches what then, would be the aggregate
quantity of water that emptled from the
clouds upon area of not quite o,o00 square
mesf Who can get any adequate conception OF
its Emptied in the same time into the worlds
greatest river it would affect the volume OF tho
Amazon And this for only one little spot in the
area of the actual downpour! Connecticut, cam
pared with that area covers less relative space
than a dinner-plate on big dlnner-taole. Is
was almost as If the great lakes had burst their
bounds and simultaneously emptied themselves
upon the country on this side