The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-01-31
PRESSURE OF THE WIND.
Extent of Resistance Necessary to witt
stand storms.


stand Storms.
From the London News
The year 1897 will be distinguished in
meteorological records for its storms Of
wind. 1t may be doubted whether any
thing more tremendous than the hurri-
cane which devastated a considerable
part of Essex this year has ever
been experienced, and very rarely
have we had rougher times than
we have gone through this WIN
ter. 1t is difficult to compare
the present with the past in this
respect. The thermometer was in
vented in 1406, and everything before
that in the way of record was necessar-
lily very dubious and unreliable There
are no means of judging how the great
Essex storm this autumn, for instance,
would compare with the famous storm
which swepth the Eddystone lighthouse
away in 1903 In point of velocity of wind.
The mere destruction of property or life
would of course, afford no criterion as
to that. The Essex storm was curiously
LEGAL in its effects, whereas the terrible
visitation of 1903 seems to have involved
the whole country. 1t is said that by
land and on sea Immediately round our
coasts no less than 5000 lives were lost
in that one storm. In the valley of the
Severn $4,000 sheep We're drowned and
in the county of Kent alone 1900 trees
We're recl1oned to have been torn up by
the roots. Such figures show the widely
extended violence of the storm, but they
DO not afford the means of judging of
the actual power of the wind.
In the tropics it is said that it is not
an unusual thing in times of hurricane
for wind to travel at the rate of 100
miles an hour. This is velocity which
brings something like half a hundred
weight to bear on every square foot of
ir,{ TIn,r IS. n
rect pressure, without computing any
thing in the way of leverage, which
must, of course. often be exerted to an
immense extent.
How nearly we sometimes approach to
the tropical standard it is difficult to
say. So far as we are aware the near
est recorded approximation was shown
by an thermometer at Liverpool in 1863
This was a foot pressure of AZ pounds
which would represent a velocity of 80
miles an hour or Whereabouts. In the
early months of 1867 Lloyd's thermometer
at the Royal Exchange here in London
showed 80 miles an hour, which would
give somewhere about 80 pounds to the
square foot. The meteorological Office
reckons anything up to "a miles an hour
a strong breeze" over that velocity 1t
calls a moderate gale" up to 40 miles
an hour; fresh gale" III blowing be-
tween 40 and As miles an hour; a strong
gale" up to Sc miles, and whole gale
for anything between that and SIS miles.
Ordinarily, that is as high as we ever get
in this country; "a storm in meteor
illogical phraseology means a velocity
of IS to rs miles an hour
Even while the wind is driving across
country at any known velocity it is not
altogether easy to say what may be the
force with which it impnges on certain
objects or rushes over any given point
Where such winds as beat over the me-
tropolis last night are roaring over lofty
buildings it must often happen that air
currents will be DETECTED and combined
in such a manner as to add immensely
to their destructive force. OF course, a
current of air rushing into narrow
channel will have its velocity and power
increased just as a stream of water
would under similar circumstances
Thus wind of IS miles an hour tearing
attain to a much higher velocity. and
this may account for the overthrow af
a good many chimney stacks and the
damage done to q good many roofs. 1t
may now and then account too for some
of the more startling incidents recorded
from time to time during storms of
wind, such as the carrying of pedes-
TRANS off their feet and the blowing over
of vehicles.
During the great storm of 1903 the
story goes that large stable was lifted
up and carried clear over five horses
and the man who was feeding them
without doing them the slightest injury,
the structure coming to earth again
many yards from its original position.