New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-04-05

For ,bc frs, seventeen year, the data are taken
,,.,, little hook. on tornadocs. hy thc Signal
Service expert. Lieutenant john 7. finley IN
,,iicb lao iabglaic, all tire information he had
h.., able f. obtain upon this point From The
Monthly Review" of the Signal Service. Finley :
own figures are obianahlc for seven months OF
1O,7: and for the remainder of the period they
are derived from the record of Local storms
in The Monthly Review of the signal service
thc most liberal construction being pat upon the
descriptions Of storms resembling tornadocs. oven
II not classcd a. such. and wat'r,poniS and cloud
bursts (which are of tornado type hcin5 In
cludcd.
THE table rs n whole is TO be- REGARDED only rs
,pproNin,aic. and subject TO the following cor
rcriiou, / some allowance should be- made for
ih, fact tia, Mr. Finley did NOT edit PHI the figures
far thc las, three years. although tie facts came
from the Sieual Service. and an attempt has been
made 10 construc them after what seems 10 hc his
mc,hod . some reporters of local storms from
fine ,rcat agricultural States o. tie West notably
Iowa aprcar recently 20 have become fearful "i
fla, cnccr ON emigration and real estate price,
nroduccd hy too alarming accounts. 3. The area
Of country now covered by meteorological ohserva-
,t,u i, much wider than it was twenty years
nro owing 10 the rapid settlement of the great
West ( The means of collecting news about
t,rr,docs have vastly and rapidly improved
through the special efforts OF the signal Service
since about lS,6 or l~,s. formation Of State
Weather Bureaus. increased popular interest and
the activity Of the press agencies. >. There l.
an unavoidable multiplication of data about
siu,c tornado in some instances from the resi-
dcncc of observers IN contieuous towns or coun-
rc, The first two corrections proposed would
fond SLIGHTLY 10 increase the figures for isS7-'~p
the last three notifications would probably lift
the total for tho first decade $50 nearly or
unite 10 that for the second i29l. and establish
an annual average of from l25 to 80. instead of
d.
Lieutenant Finley expresses the belief that in
general way tornadocs were rs frequent hundred
years ago as now, and that they will be rs
numerous a century hence; but he admits
tlc pro,ahilitv that there are periods of maxi
mum occurrence alternating with those of mini
mum occurrence" When lie made this state
mcnt, three years ago, he did not think II practi-
cable to define these periods with the data at
hand. But a hint. which IS possibly dclusivc,
nav be found in the second half of the above
table Let The first decade he dsrcmrdcd, and
let n supposed annual average OF 40 he adopted.
Then one gets a rough cycle of about ten years,
with minima at its ends and maximum near ,he
middle. ana fciSpnahl' appl'dllon Oh 'oiIc'-
lions 3. D.; and , would tend to shift the true
ma Nimum from its apparent position u's6l to
somewhere near 1854 This date SUGGESTS. what
the cycle does the clcven-year sunspot period,
of which we are now in or Just past the minimum
stage the last having occurred in 1873. The
last maximum was in 1854. And it, is curious
fact that in February of that year the start ling
record of sixty tornadocS IN one day was made ::
something not parallclcd by anything in Amer
lean meteorological history 50 FAR MS written. II
was in that month, according TO Tacchini. that the
crest of the sunspot curve came although Wolf
locatcs il three months earlier November. SS3l,
and Carbaldi makes il three months later
But whether there he anything in this interesting
coincidence or not, il seems probable that we
have recently had minimum Of tornndocs, which
must sooner or later give way 10 gradual in
creas.. LII lrcnmcncN for % few Ncars.