Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1895-02-07
COLD WAVES.

Speaking about cold waves and
weather in general the other day, Prof.
H. A Hazen, of the United States
Weather Bureau at Washington, said (:
"We have some kinds of weather in
the United States that are unknown
abroad. Take the recent cold wave, for
example. 1t was record breaker, you
know, carrying the rigors of winter to
a lower latitude than has been known
for sixty years at least. Florida suffer.
ed $4,000,000 worth Of damage. AT
Pensacola the oranges froze hard on the
trees. The thermometer at Tampa fell
to eighteen degrees above Zero-fve
degrees below the lowest ever noted.
At Orange Park ice two inches thick
formed on ponds. A cold wave of equal
severity, it is said, struck the fiowery
peninsula in 1885, but temperatures
were not recorded with reliable accu
racy.
''Cold waves are unknown in Europe.
We may justly pride ourselves upon
them as an American institution. 1t is
the same way with billiards. Who
ever heard Of a blizzard in Europe?
Gold waves are very strange phe-
nomena. Nobody knows with Ger
tainty where they come from or how
they are formed. They are formed
somewhere inland in the far north
west, in the latitude of greatest cold,
which, as you know, is good way
south of the North Pole. At the
North Pole it is probably comparative
" warm, and that extremity Of the
earth's axis is probably surrounded by
an open and unfrozen sea. AS for the
typical cold wave, my belief is that it
is composed Of air drawn down from
the higher aud more frigid regions Of
the atmosphere. Ascend to an altitude
of thirty miles above the earth's sur
face, aud you might find rarified air
at temperature of 100 degrees below
zero, or even much lower. The body
of cold formed by the downrush of this
frigid air from above starts on jour
ney eastward across the continent,
travelling at the speed of a fast rail-
way train, thirty-five or forty miles
an hour. As it proceeds it spreads out.
Obviously, the cold air would be grad
ually warmed during the trip unless
the waves were replenished with cold
in some fashion. My notion is that
while the wave is in transit fresh cold
is continually drawn into it from
ABOVE, where there is always an un-
limited supply of air at an extremely
low temperature Finally, the wave pass
es of the oceap. In some manner the
Allegheny mountains seem TO interrupt the
passage o: cold waves to 4 certain extent, as
il cold sir was banked up against that range
of hills al it, passage thus impe led. On this
account it is very difficult TO predict cold
waves for the region of Washington and Bal
tim0re.
The lowest temperature ever recorded on
the earth was taken at Werchoiansk, in the
interior of Siberia, January 10, 1855. 1t
was nearly niuety degrees and fraction be-
low zero. Werchojansk is in the latitude of
the pole of cold. There the earth is frozen TO
a depth of sbodt one hundred feet, and in the
warmest season it never thaws. The highest
temperature recorded is 124 degrees and
fraction, taken in Algeria, July II, 1879.
The lowest temperature on record IN the
United States is Ga degrees below zero. at
Tobacco Garden, North Dakota. Grecly, the
Arctic explorer, has probably expe fenced a
wider range of temperature than any other
Ii ;ing man. He rccorod Sc degrees below
zero, at Fort Congor in Lady Franklin Bay.
On another occasion, in the Marcopa Desert
of Alizona, his thermometer in the shade ran
up to Id above A lucfer match dropped
upon the burning sands of tho Sahara would
would catch fire. 1t is very difficult even
wissin the finest thermometers, to get accurate
records of extreme temperatures, and on that
acc unit such observations in general are to
be regard as only approximately correct"