Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-08-29
CLOUD-BURSTS OF 1888.
The General Cause The1 eof a Difficult Question
to Solve.


to Solve.
One fact about this year 1889 is beyond
dispute, says the Hartford Times. IL has
brought more ''cloud bursts" and devsstat
ing rain floods In various parts of the
globe than any other year on record.
Everywhere there is tendency on the
part of the people to become web-footed.
To swim far is getting to be q necessary
accom- pllshment, not alone in such re-
gions as Pennsylvania and New Jersey
and China and Hungary, but pretty much
everywhere else. Never before since Noah
raised his umbrella on the way to the ark
has there been such a prolonged success
sion of amazing downponrs. Connecticut
with all the rest, is, like Will Waterproof
in his tavern.
Soaked and saturated out and out,
Through every convolution."
And still the rains keep coming. Such
majestic and continuous masses of ashen-
gray or thunder-blsck rain-clouds extend
ing all through summer and accom-
panied by such rains we do not remember
IN any former year. Last year was wet
and cool all summer, and it gre. wetter
and colder as the seasons changed. nor
did the cold storms let up till the middle
of December. After that date the winter
proved mild one, and it was followed by
an early spring and summer. But by the
time summer had actually come the
rains also had come.
First came the awful disaster in the
Conemaugh valley, in the Pennsylvania
Alleghanies, May 31-a calamity without
any precedent or parellel-at least outside
of China. In that storm throughout all
that part of Pennsylvania the downpour
was eight inchss in forty-sight hours. l.
would take too much time and room to re-
cap1t1late all the genuine "cloud bursts
which have occurred this summer in var
lous parts of orr country, to say nothing
Of the other parts of the globe, where the
loss of life, as in the Hungarian floods has
been, like the fatalities in China, of an
extraordinary character. 1t is but few
days since single deluge at Chicago
caused the loss of 100000 worth of
property. In that rain over four inchs of
of water came down in four hours.
The government signal station reports
the surprising total OF 161a inches OF rain
for July. According to the report in the
New York Palladium the rainfall during
the twenty -four hours ending a. noon
recently was 600 inches.
Kansas, Texas, New York state, Tennes-
see, the Berkshire hills of western Mass
achusetts, and indeed most parts of Anne
ica, repart tremendous and repeated rains.
In the upper valley of Connecticut's
western rivers, the Housatonic, the ex-
element has been great, and the fear of
another Conemaugh disaster by the
bursting of the large dam at Lee, Mass,
has led many people there to abandon
their homes and flee to the hills. The
same thing has occurred at several places
in New Jersey, where several dams have
burst and the people had to flee, and some
to swim. July L the city of Washington
was flooded by suoh a downpour as nobody
had ever witnessed there before. The
water it is said to have overfoooded the
treasury vaults. Kansas has had repeated
and destructive floods this summer, and
northern Texas still worse ones. At
Daven port, Iowa, July Is there was down
pour that measured over inchs in six
hours. On the same day seemingly in
credible cloud-burst at Linden, Tenn, is
said by the local newspapers to have pre-
cipitated Ii inches in seven hours.
The floods in Europe have been serious.
France, Italy, Germany Austria, and the
Lower Danube countries all report ire
mendous rains, and in some instances not
only great loss of property but a
serious loss Of life. In China, while the
Pennsylvania floods were pouring there
came downpour which at Hong Kong
MAY 20 3O) measured 2911a inces in thirty
three hours.
Speculations on the causes of such
weather are of little value, but undoubted-
Iy there will ere long be better scientific
knowledge concerning such phenomena.
That the general cause may be entirely
outside of our OVID globe seems possible;
but whether it is wholly due, as some
newspapers maintain, to an unwonted
state of activity in the forces of the sun,
or WHISTLER, as few others believe, the
delicate adjustment of lnterplanetary
gravitational forces is disturbed by the
nearer positions, this season of some of
the outer planets in the orbital Journeys
around the sun, it is question which can
not at present be decided.