Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-22
SIXTY YEARS
We Must Wait Professor Diapers
Theory Explains This Mild Winter.
He Says That Rainfalls Pass Through Periods
of Sixty Years From Their Maximum to
Their Minimum
New York Press.


Gus winter days of the past, where sleigh
bells merrily jingled in Fifth avenue
need not dispair of seeing a repetition Of
the good ld-fashioned winter weather,
At least this is the opinion of Prof. DAME
Draper, who presides over the Meteoro-
logical observatory in Central park. He
draws this conclusion from observation:
extending over the past 200 years, not al
made by himself, however, but many OF
them by French scientists. Accord
ing to these, Prof. Draper says.
rainfalls pass through periods OF sixty
years from their maximum to their mini
mum annual average, and the years of
greatest rainfall mean also years of the
greatest amounts of snow, for snow, as
is pretty well understood, is merely rain
CONCEALED through a low temperature
In the last 200 years three rainfall pc
RODS have existed. This country is just
now finishing up one rainfall period
That is, the average annual rainfall has
been gradually diminishing for sixty
years, until its lowest point has just been
passed, and we are now gong up the in
cline. In consequence, winters aYerag-
ing more and more snow are now in or
der, and sixty years hence win see New
York in the full glory of an old fashioned
winter
Just at present, therefore, winters with
little rainfall and less SHOW are the thing
TO look for. And New York is right in
the midst of an actual experience of it.
The mild winter thus far is phenomenal !,
and il has set all We ancient weather men
in town and country to thinking, and
they are all putting their heads together
TO determine what have been the severest
winter anG what have been the mildest
within the past fifty years.
Meteorologists and the oldest inhabitant
are in absolute harmony in declaring that
the winter of 1856 was the toughest one
within the memory of men now liv-
ing. - Half a century back takes them
10 that eventful winter, the most disas-
trous New York ever saw, for it
was then when the thermOme-
ter was the lowest, the winds were
the bitterest, and the snow the most
abundant, that one-third OF the city was
destroyed by fire. Tradition still tells
how the streets of New York in that sea-
son were blockaded with snow and how
the North river remained frozen solid for
l25 days. The cold wave swept all over
the country, even including Florida. It
land of flowers were killed. Live oak
trees with the diameter of a man s body
were split open with their sap trans
formed into ice. Old people of West
chester and Duchess counties still re-
count how houses and barns were literally
buried in snow heaps, how drifts across
highways had to be tunnele1 for sleighs
TO pass through and how long detours
through fields had to be made in travel
ing from place to place.
Then there are memoirs of the winter
of lS55-56, when New York experienced
terrific snow storms, and when the sur
rounding country was buried in snow
Westminster county snow banks re-
manned from early in October until after
the middle Of April, and sleighing was
abundant in New York. Still the aver
age temperature of the winter months
for that year was little above zero. It
was much colder in 1866, when the mini
mum temperature in January was IL de-
grees below zero, although in February
the minimum was above Zelo.
Within the past twenty years the aver
age increased mildness of our winters
strikes those who stop to think of the
matter. The winter of 1S69-70 was
mild one, and a New York man who
went to Florida for his health that win
ter narrates how predictions there of ruin
TO his garden sauce would follow because
he planted it as winter came on, all came
to naught because of the mild weather,
indicate the general spread of a comfort
ing temperature The winter of 1874
was so mild that people ventured TO
sit out of doors on the lst of January,
whereas the year before snow and wind
oh NJ 10 10
season seem d long and dreary one.
in lS78-79 there was much snow
and good deal of sleighing, while jan
nary of 1881 and 1882 brought seven days
of snow each, with fall of IL inches of
snow in that month in 1881, and of IL 3
in 1882. The fall of snow last January,
over eight days for 80 total
hours, was only little over the average,
being II inches, the average being 10.
Prof. Draper says that despite the
fluctuations in temperature and snow from
winter to winter, the average during the
last siXty-seven years remains about the
same. One interesting way of getting an
idea Of the winters in this city, as TO
their comparative mildness or severity I
is to follow the course of the Hudson
river from year to year to ascertain how
many days it has remained clad in ice.
Taking the period from 1922 down,
oT the sixty-seven years since observa-
tons nave been made in this city, and il is
fourd that while every period of ten years
averages almost the same, being 50, 90,
"A 80 and 81 from 1917 to 1867, the van-
Dus years show a marked difference. The
longest period for which the river was
closed was in the winter of 1928, for
1876 days. Then comes the winter of 1885,
) for l25 days. In 1921 it was closed for
l23 days; in 1867 for III days, while IN
IS4l-2 it was closed for only AZ days, in
Heating most mild winter. The follow
ng table shows the number of days the
Hudson was closed from 1851 to 1868; |
Year. Days. Year. Days.
Jos lS5960. 50
Observation-Disclosures. 81 6l............ SO
e5S-4 ..---..-.-...-... % iUJ
S54-5 lUS 1875. lu9
1861. .........-..... 50
So6-I..-... % u
Is 1856. ........-..... 50
% 1OS
A fair idea of the amount of snow in this |