Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-04
An Extraordinary Summer Storm,

From the New York Tribune
The rainfall in western PENNSYLVANIA last
Thursday and Friday is reported to have been
about five inches. This is nearly twice the
normal amount for the whole month of MAY in
PittsbuIg. In summer, such precipitation is
sometimes closely approached or even ex-
ceeded over very limited areas, in local
storms" Baltimore, for instance, reported
4.42 inches iii one and a half hours June o.
1885. The gauge at the West Hartford Conn
water works registered inches in two hours
July 29, 1887. over five inches" was the re-
port from Oskaloosa, Iowa, July 9. 1885. The
story that 1919 inches fell at Mobile in the thir-
ty.six hours ending June &c, l80S, though not
official, Is quite credible. At Rocky Hill
Conn, in three hours. July 81,
| 1887. Ga inches of rain fell: and "The
Hartford Times" said the water
came down almost solid" This was no doubt
what is known "cloud-burst" a phenome-
non bred by the same conditions which pro-
duce hunder-showers and uornadoes The
destruction wrought by the enormous weight
as well as the suddenness of this type of rain
storm makes 1t almost impossible accurately to
measure the precipitation. The coud-burst
which washed out the New-Tork Central en-
bankment near Amsterdam, in the summer of
1885, lasted only three minutes. and covered
| only few towns Thirty square miles of land
were submerged, and damage 10 the extent of
100000 done in Illinois. opposite ST.
al IL
lon which was sufficiently brief to have been
described as occurring lat o'clock" Streams
rose suddenly and to an appalling extent. Just
| as If a dam had given way. Plenty OF such in
stances can be cited.
! Except in connection with West India cy-
clones, which affect only the coast of this
country, rainfalls like that near Pittsburg last
week are very uncommon east of the Rocky
mountains Probably the worst visitation Of
this kind which New York city has had in
twenty years or more was deposit Of G. 46 in
ches, September %, 1882 in connection with a
tropical hurricane. The amount for three con-
secutive days at that time was SO inches In
New London. Conn, February 1914, there fell
8.93 inches. This was during the prevalence of
a double storm, the worst half being .'secon-
| dairy" to the other, neither of them coming
| from low ATTITUDES. ~ But this was almost
without parallel in that region for half
| century. About a foot of rain fell
| at Charleston, s. c., at the time of
| Galveston had 1858 inches between September
Is and 20, the same year, from similar storm.
| The extraordinary downpour at Alexandria,
Las inches-in the fifty hours ending June
| Is, 1886, Is probably attributable to a like
| cause. But this class of deluge-breeders never
| gets inland very far. For this time of wear.
/ and the region between the Alleghanies and
| the Mississippi, 1t would be hard to find q gen.
eral rain storm equaling in severity that of
| which the YOUNGSTOWN disaster is such start
ling feature. OF course, in a mountainous
country like Cambria county, the smallest
J creeks would swell enormously and quickly
| under such circumstances, even if no cloud
! burst occurred. A local reinforcement of that
! sort, however, might easily have been added
| to the general downpour while the meteoro-
| logical conditions of last week prevailed.