Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-06
DECEMBER WEATHER.
A Month without An Equal In a
Dozen Years.

A Month without An Equal In a
Dozen Years.
The Signal Service Office was opened
in this city in July, 1877. That is
twelve years ago last July. Since that
time there is an official accurate daily
record OF all the phases of the weather.
A few moments study of the tables will
show that the month Of December, 1889,
which has just closed, ia month with
out 8 parallel in those dozen years. 1t
is without parallel as to the number OF
days on which rain fell, and as to the
total rainfall for the month. For twelve
years the average number of rainy
days in the year is forty. TAX
ing separate months the average number
of rainy days ranges from one to eight.
The average for December, exclusive of
last month, is five. In the twelve years
there have been six months out of the
one hundred and forty-four in which
there were more than ten days in one
month when any rain fell, and there
were six more when there were ten rainy
days to the month. Ia the spring of
1884, February and March produced re.
spectiyely fourteen and eighteen days on
which rain fell. BY saying that such
days were rainy, or that rain fell on
them, it means that there was some pre-.
cipitation on such days. The one
hundredth part of an inch of rain
would bring day within the category
here named. December last is credited
with twenty such days, and one day in
which there was trace Of precipitation.
1t the amount of rainfall to the month
is regarded, the month under review is
quite as singular in its record. The total
rainfall for this remarkable month is
1880 inches. That is close onto the
average rainfall for the twelve years of
the Signal Ssrvice record, that
average being 1851 inches. The
one month referred to comes
within less than three-quarters of
an inch of that average. In the twelve
years there were five in which the an
nual rainfall was less than the amount
that fell in December, 1889. Taking the
month Of December in the twelve years
previous to 1889, it appears that the
average precipitation for the month
ranges at from small fraction of an
inch to $40 inches, the average for the
twelve years being 1852 inches. The
averages for all months of the year range
at from .03 of an inch to 3.7S inches.
February has until this for many
years enjoyed the reputation OF
having the largest amount of rainfall,
while March carried the banner for the
largest number of rainy days both in the
average and in the number in any one
year. AS February and March, 1884,
were the only months in the twevle
years that approached December, 1889,
in the numbe of rainy days, so they are
the only ones that came near il in the
total amount of precipitation, their record
being respectively 1887 and 1886
inches, records greatly exceeded by last
month with lis 1880 inches.
The total excess of precipitation
in last December over the average of
other Decembers was 12.4S inches-a
very respectable yearly rainfall, quite
sufficient, anu more than enough, to
produce fine crops of all sorts.
Nor is December's bad record yet ex-
hausted. In this land of almost per-
petual sunshine it turns up here with
Twelve cloudy days, eleven partly cloudy
days and only eight clear days. In fact,
the weather last month seemed am bilious
to beat the record of Byron's London
rather than that of our semi, tropics.
That is, taking summer and winter, less
than one-half the average Of perfect
daya; much less than the average of
fair days; and q raise Of 200 Fer cent.
over the average of cloudy days. Con-
fning ones attention to December, it ap-
. 4ars that last month did worse than re-
verse the record of twelve years, in
which that month appears in the tables
credited with an average of Is clear days,
9 fair days and only cloudy days. No
December heretofore had less than 10
clear days to its credit, or
less than 20 days clear and fair
combined, while the most set down to
the account of cloudy days was eleven,
and that only once. Clear days in this
record means absolutely perfect ones,
when not heck obscured a speck of
sky. Cloudy days include those that
developed fog for part of the day.
Thus it will appear that the month OF
Decem Der, 1889, has the worst record of
any one in half hundreds of
it's predecessors. And to top
the climax, as might be expected, the
month was colder than the average ny
several degrees below the average mean
temperature of the twelve Decembers
before it. The average mean tempera-
tura of the month was 55 degrees. the
highest running up to 6S degrees and the
lowest down to 40 degrees. The maxi.
mum temperature for all the days of the
month ranged between 54 and 6S de-
grees. while the minimum temperature
ran along at from 40 to 81 degrees. The
greater number of days appear
with q minimum temperature Of
between 40 and 81 degrees, q
very comfortable temperature for the
lowest point in the early mornings, the
hours when the sun was up ranging at
So to 68 degrees. Thus, while the
month stands condemned in the annals
of the semi tropic climate, it would
really rank well as an eastern April, and
is paradisaic compared with the record
OF mid winter weather elsewhere.