Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1888-01-16
MeteOrOlOgfcal.

Meteor0lOg ical.
The readers of Geographic dispatches
in current issues of the daily papers
published in this section must hug
themselves with no small amount of
dissatisfaction as they read these
mornings the meteorological records
from all parts of the Union. Think
of snowdrifts IS feet deep! Imagine
200 miles of railroad on which the
snow is piled Is feet deep! What
picture it is! And then school chill
dren, as they return from school, fall in
the snow overcome by the cold and per-
ish Farmers blinded by the biz
zard wander aimlessly all night
long on the frozen prairie Men die
on the steps Of their own doors unable
to make one more effort to reach
shelter The catalogue of these
casualties each morning stretches out
to the length of column. The de-
gree of cold ranges from 20 to so de-
grees below zero. That is beyond the
Rockies.
Getting to the Pacific coast we find
the Wallamet river frozen stiff, so that
pedestrians cross on the ice at Port
land, Oregon. Even our own Cali
fornia, so boastful OF her glorious eli
mate, has been invaded by this Arctic
wave, and the mercury has gone
down to points never visited by it
here before. At North San Juan the
thermometer was at eighteen degrees
below the freezing point OF water. At
Dutch Flat it was at zero. From Sac
remento we learn that ice is
floating in the river the first
time since 1854. Colusa reports
seventeen degrees below the freezing
point OF water. Modesto, which is
far south, confesses to sixteen degrees
below the point at which aqeous con-
collation. takes place. Placerville,
forty-seven miles from Sacramento,
and near the center Of the so-called
northern citrus belt, gets down within
six degrees of zero. Here in Los
Angeles, and on the sunny foothills
near by, the coolest record OF
the season, thus far, has been
merely the freezing point of water.
This indicates, of course, the lowest
point in the twenty-four hours, which
is at about 2 to 8 O'Clock in the morn
ing. Where the temperature is so
mild as here, the mercury at noon on
all such days has been up to so to
IS degrees. At shutdown perhaps 40
to As degrees will register our worst
cold, for that hour. People in
good health 60 about care
less of such thing as
an overcoat. 1t is better to provide
and wear one. A great many houses
"a large majority of those in all parts
of the county-have not known fire
outside their kitchens this year yet.
A cord of wood will last an average
family two months. Gloves, wraps,
Arctic shoes, and other like parapher-
MALTA of cold winters are all happily
unknown. The grass is green on the
hillsides. Roses are in bloom in the
gardens.
If we want to get the full realiza-
ton of all this comprises, we must re-
call how uncomfortable sickly people
are in Los Angeles these cold days.
We must remember that several old
people have succumbed to the trying
effects of the cold. Then dwell upon
the fact that outside this charmed
circle the cold has been from
Is degrees at the best to IS
degrees at the worst, lower than
here. If invalids suffer in our glorious
cline, what must life be to them in
the others? If the old and weak
find their little vitality fatally sapped
here with the thermometer at thirty
two degrees, how must it be where it
is at sixteen degrees, or at zero, or at
fifty degrees below Zero? And in all
the American Union there is only the
little area of Semi-Tropic California
where this truly ethereal mildness
can be relied on for all years and all
seasons! In view Of this how many
people are going to crowd in here to
find home? Standing room only is
the motto for the near future