Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1896-11-26

$surSS1 W. Louis In May, this
year, attracts the
leaders, attention
to extraordinary vi
cissitudes Of the worlds weather dur
Ing the last eighteen months, says the
5t. James Gazette 1t will be observed
that storms Of this locally violent
character entirely different from what
are properly termed cyclones, gem
orally occur at the close of long period
Of drought such as we have lately ex-
perienced. 1t would almost seem, in
deed, as though nature, weary of one
type, swung over to the opposite with
the petulant violence of spoilt child.
The tornadoes which peppered the
middle states of America this spring
terminated drought which affected q
large portion Of the same area so Sc
verely as to allow the bed OF the Ohio
river to be worked for coal, reduced
the fall at Niagara and lowered the st.
Lawrence to an unprecedented extent.
Extending the area Of observation, we
find ever since February, 1895, equally
abnormal conditions prevalent over
India, Australia and the Pacific and
Indian oceans. For example, the south
east trade wind Of the Indian ocean
and It's twin brother, the southwest
monsoon of India, were very feeble
last summer, the failure of the latter
causing a drought nearly down to fam
Inc mark in some parts of India.
Coincidentally with and following
these conditions on the Australian side
Of the high-prsssure atmospheric wall
bounding the southeast trades, an ex-
traordinary prevalence of hot, dry
northwest winds occurred right ON to
April, 1896, throughout Australia and
New Zealand, raising the temperature
in New South Wales to such height
that the government actually carried
people free by rail from the interior to
the coast in order to save their lives.
The temperature in Sydney ran up to
such record heights as 1O6 and 1903 de-
/ oAS SpI eAh0 ONCh III AFOW GOdluhu, CA
cept at the extreme southern end, the
famous hot northwesters of the Canter-
bury district dried up the crops, while
the North island, especially near Auck-
land, looked as though it had been
toasted in front Of some Titanic fire.
In contrast, but evidently in CORE
spondence with these abnormal fea-
lures, the North Pacific was unusually
stormy, Honolulu receiving quite an
unusual supply of "Koua," or winter
storms, while California, at the bound
airy of the oceanic area, came in for
similar excess Of Its curiously mark
ed winter rains. Elsewhere drought
seems to have been the rule The
low Nile" was recently formidable
obstacle to the Soudan expedition. and
the violent resumption of rain over it's
basin, in common with the similar
change which now seems to be every
where terminating this world land
drought, is creating fresh scourge
by promoting the conditions favorable
10 the spread or cnolera.
1t is not easy to discover even the
proximate causes for such a wide
spread anomaly, or to draw a practical |
moral; but general survey would ap-
pear to show that the equatorial rain |
belt has been less developed than
usual, and that the atmosphere over
the continents on either side Of it has
been less heaped up into narrow belts
of high pressure and more uniformly
spread over large surfaces.
Where this occurs in summers we
have the conditions which are favor
able to drought, merging subsequently
when the lower air remains station
airy, as it did over the United States in
the spring, and gradually becomes
charged with excessive heat and HUI
midity-into those favorable to the
production Of local storms and lorna
does. The storm at Paris was due to
such conditions, and the result of
stagnation, rather than an increase in
the ordinary movements Of the atmos-
phere.
When the circulation over the north
Atlantic is more than ordinarily vigor-
GUS the energy is expended in the
larger horizontal movements. termed
cyclones, which frequently embrace an
area as large as Russia. 1t is only
when these motions are so reduced as
to allow the warm lower air to pene-
trate the upper layers in places, like
water flowing through a sink, and like
1t to draw in the surrounding air in
rapidly rotating whirls, that tornadoes
are generated. Such conditions, though
common enough over a large land
area like the United States are, for
tunately, rendered rare in Europe by
virtue of it's latitude and geography;
so that we need not conclude that the
tornado epidemic will ever find a ia
vorable breeding-ground over here.