The Indianapolis journal., 1899-02-13
COLD WAVES.
A Scientist Tells of Some of Their Re-
markabIe Phenomena.
Baltimore American.

Baltimore American.
Speaking about cold waves and weather
in general yesterday member of the Mary
land Academy of Science said:
I'VE have some kinds of weather in the
United States that are unknown abroad
Take, the cold wave, for example that
struck the far South a couple of years ago.
1t was a record breaker, you know, carry
ing the rigors of winter to a lower latitude
than has been known for sixty years at
least. Florida suffered $4,000,00O worth of
damage. AT Pensacola the oranges froze
hard on the trees The thermometer at
Tampa fell to eighteen degrees above zero
five degrees below the lowest ever noted
At Orange Park leo 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 re-
liable accuracy.
cold waves are unknown in Europe. We
may justly pride ourselves upon them as
an American institution. 1t is the same way
with blizzards.o Who ever heard of bliz-
Zard in Europe?
Cold waves are very strange phenomena.
Nobody knows with certainty where they
come from or how they are formed. They
are formed somewhere inland in the far
Northwest in the latitude of greatest cold
which, as you know, is a good way south
of the north pole. AT the north pole it is
probably comparatively warm, and that eX-
tremity of the earth's axis is perhaps sur
rounded by an open and .unfrozen sea- AS
for the typical cold wave, my belief is that
1t Is composed of air drawn down from the
higher and more frigid regions of the at
mosphere. Ascend to an altitude thirty
miles above the earths surface and you
might hnd raretied air at a temperature
of one hundred degrees below zero or even
much lower. The body of cold formed by
the down-rush of this frigid air from above
starts on journey eastward across the
continent. travelling at the speed of a fast
railway train thirty-fiVe or forty miles an
hour. AS it proceeds it spreads out. OBJ
viously the cold air would be gradually
warmed during the trip unless the wave
were repleniShed with cold in some fashion.
My notion is that while the wave is in
transit fresh cold is continually drawn into
1t from above, where there is always an un-
limited supply of air at an extremely low
temperature. Finally the wave passes off
over the ocean. In some manner the Alle-
gheny mountains seem to interrupt the
passage of cold waves to a certain extent,
as II the cold air was banked up against
that range Of hills, and its passage thus i'm
peded. On this account 1t is very difficult
to predict cold waves for the region of Balti-
more and Washington.
The lowest temperature ever recorded on
the earth was taken at WerchojanSk, in the
interior of Siberia, Jan, Is, 1885. 1t was
Werchojansk is in the latitude of the pole
of cold. There the earth is frozen to a depth
of about one hundred feet, and in the warm
est season it never thaWS. The highest tenn
perature recorded is 124 degrees and a frac-
tfon, taken in Algeria July II, 1879 The low
est temperature on record in the United
Tobacco Garden, N. ID. Greedy, the arctic
explorer, has probably experienced a wider
range of temperature than any other living
man. He recorded sixty-six degrees below
zero at Fort Congor in Lady Franklin bay.
On another occasion in the Maricopa desert
of Arizona his thermometer in the shade
ran up to ia above. lucifer match
dropped upon the burning sands of Sahara
will catch fire. 1t is very difficult, even with
the finest thermometers to get accurate
records of extreme temperatures, and on
that account such observations in general
correct"