The evening world. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1887-1931, 1894-09-20
5.28 INCHES OF RAIN FELL.
That Was the Record Made by the
Storm Of Yesterday.
Farmer Dunn Tells Why II Wasn't
an Equinoctial Affair.

While the total rainfall during the
storm which broke over New York at 6
o'clock Tuesday morning, and which
lasted until 7.2o o'clock last night, does
not equal the record, Wednesday, Sept.
10, 1894, will be known In history as
record-breaking day Just the same.
From o'clock yesterday morning
until 100 o'clock last night, when the
storm was over, 4.l9 inches of rain had
fallen over ehis city. That is the great
est ever known for the same space of
time-a little less than twelve hours.
Previous to A. NJ. yesterday, only
Log inches had fallen, making a total OF
5.2S inches.
A told in 1.-THE Evening world' yes
terday, the greatest rainfall ever known
for any one storm was Sept. 20 and %.
1882, when GIT inches fell, and Sept. ID
and u, 1880 when 5l2 inches descended
were for the full twenty-four hours.
The storm did not exactly end at 7.3O
O'clock last night. It stopped for a
last expiring effort and an hour later
had died. That last effort gave 9-lOO
inch, but II was SO insignificant that
Farmer Dunn would not let 1t go in the
record.
The storm has gone the way OF all
s sae others Ssn and nothing Is left Of It
to-day, and Farmer Dunn says 1t will
remain SO. and that 1t will be fair and
cool tomorrow. Old Humidity, too has
amde a great blum this morning. when,
at o'clock, he started out with per-
centagN Of IS. Then he weakened, and
at 10 o'clock he had dropped down to
70. The mercury at that time stood at
the same figure.
On the west side, however, up in the
Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards,
| n nd To- Ill,
something more than a memory. The
sewers In Brooklyn were not half big
enough to carry off the water which
backed up into the cellars of houses in
District streets have been closed up on
account of many cave-ins, and on the
west side the bucket brigade has been
Farmer Dunn is annoyed at the at
tempts made to call the storm an equi-
noctial affair. He gives a lot Of rea..
sons to show that IT was nothing OF
the kind, and that In fact no such thing
as an equinoctial storm could happen.
This latest, he said, was an ordinary
everyday storm, which gathered In
the ordinary atmospheric conditions. and
developed no energy of any kind until
yesterday morning.
The cyclonic season." he said, "usu-
ally begins from the time the sun
starts to go south. and takes in the
months of July, August and September
tropical storms usually develop their
power on account of the sun leaving
the north. The great amount of evapo-
ration that takes place over the tropi-
cal regions and the south Is due to
this travelling of the sun towards the
time is so rapid and such an enormous
amount is gathered into the atmosphere
that 1t becomes a powerful factor in the
storms.
at Is not because the sun crosses the
equator on any given day." Mr.. Dunn
continued, that causes the rain-storm.
There Is no earthly reason to suppose
that when the sun reaches the equator
IT Is going to spring a trap and open
the sluice gates. You might as well
say that when the sun reaches any other
point storms must necessarily follow.
Most of the tropical storms develop
and move northward long before the sun
gets to the equator at all. This storm,
for instance, developed In Mexico Mop-
day and moved northward to the middle
Atlantic coast. This in spite Of the fact
that the sun does not get as far as the
squator until tomorrow.
However, there Is no use in trying to
kill off this story of equinoctial storms.
1t Is theory of long standing, and, like
all of Its kind. very hard to change.
There are dozens of other theories that
have as little truth in them"
Nearly all of the fog which accom-
panied the recent storm has disap-
peared. The temperature is stationary
over the Atlantic States In the North
west 1t is a little warmer to-day, and
in the Central States, cooler. The wind
at s o'clock had toned down to twelve
miles an hour.