The San Francisco call., 1898-12-29
ALLOWED A LOW
 TO GET CONTROL
A STINGING NoRTHER HURRY
 ING TO DAKOTA.
Its Spiral Path Includes This State. All Moisture Following It
 Along.

l There is something wrong with the weather sharps in the interior. They have let Tow" settle down in Montana or | Idaho or Dakota, and as a consequence the little rain California has had is get ting licked up by stinging mortimer blow ing cold and sharp from high off the | Oregon coast Wind blows from high" sprally toward Tow" and that is why this coast is suffering from the negli- gence of the interior weather makers. | Eureka announced the coming of the norther first. Then 1t picked up Point Reyes and the Sacramento Valley, and. | spreading over the State, it swept down the San Joaquin Valley, speeding for Te- | hachapi and the desert beyond 1 The low was a British production. It started north of the line and should never have been allowed in here at all, but it slipped past the weather offices and first gave warning by twirling the wind vanes until they whirred in protest | against overwork. Then Nevada became 1 infected and arranged a little secondary depression''-an incipient low-of her l own, and the wind turned toward the sage-brush plains and is now carrying large clouds of Nevada over into adjoin- l ing territory. Seventy miles was slow for l Nevada for a good part of yesterday, 1 and unless she gets rid of her low she will get it worse to-day.
 
 | day to-day, and there will succeed cold snap that will raise the price of over | coats. The souln will be in windy up roar until tomorrow and then the cold wave will visit there. But there will be no rain-and what little moisture is in the | State will fly along with the hurrying ] wind,
 Forecaster Hammon says this is the worst mortimer of the season, but he does not think it will do any damage on the bay.
 MT. Hammon is still on Mount Tamal- pals, but he is coming down next Satur- day or Sunday. He has prayed for rain and threatened, and scattered salt around | his door and has fondled black cats. but he can see nothing ahead but clear skies, so he is coming home to await develop | ments.
 Shipping along the front was warned ] to look out for the mortimer, and accord l ingly all the vessels at the wharves be. tween Market street and Meiggs wharf l got out extra mooring lines and prepared I hay lenders. At Point Lobos at a. m. the wind was blowing eight miles an hour 1 from the south, at a. m. 1t was six noon thirty miles from the northwest and at D. m. forty-four miles from the north west. At Point Reyes the. wind opened i up at thirty miles an hour from the northwest at a. m., and at noon had in- creased to fifty-five miles. At p. m. it was bowling at the rate of seventy miles 1 an hour.
 There was a stacking down of the gale on the bay at ! o'clock and a sudden in- crease of the wind force at 9. Along the seawall at Meiggs wharf the storm fairly 1 hummed, kicking up heavy foam-capped swell that pounded against the dock pill ing with tremendous power The only vessel at the seawall was the British ship Fannie Kerr, which tugged at her seven | wire hawsers till they were tentioned like fiddle strings. Fortunately she lay bow on to the wind, which prevented her from banging against the wall and damaging i herself.
 The little quarantine steamer Sternberg 1 at Meiggs wharf rolled and beat against the spring piles as If she would shake the i smokestack out of her. The gasoline launch Brisk, bound out to the steamer i Weyfield with party of customs off, cers shipped several heavy seas and came | near being swamped.
 At 10 o'clock the. wind suddenly died down and the air grew perceptibly colder but the Hull was but a temporary one.