The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-01
ALL KINDS OF STORMS.
4 STRENGTHENING OUT or TERMS
ACCORDING TO METEOROLOGI-
CAL TSAGEs.
Cyclone That Travelled 1900 Miles.
Some Of the Signs of the storms
PrOgress-West Indian Hurricanes.

Some OF the Signs of the storms
PrOgreSs-West Indian Hurricanes.
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Time and again have devastating hurri-
canes swept over the West Indies and left
death and destruction in their paths, but
the reports Of such devastation have serv-
ed to arouse but a temporary interest 10
the sad calamities on the part of the Amer
lean public. Although near a hand, these
storms have ravaged foreign shores, but
since our Cuban campaign and the acqui-
siuon Of West Indian territory these hur-
rlcanes have become, as IL were, home
product, and al. America is interested in
any work Of destruction accomplished by
them. This IS particularly the case with
the present hurricane, which has just
swept over our new West Indian posses
slons and has since been blowing It's way
through the atmospheric ocean to our
mainland. Seldom has any storm excited
such interest as the present one partly
because il as the first severe one of this
Kind which we have experienced since ac-
curing our new possessions, partly be-
cause it has carried death and destruction
among a people whom we feel bound to
protect and aid, and party because ii fur
nishes the first graphic Illustration of the
success of the recent extension of our
weather. bureau system among the West
Indian Islands. tcs
The tesms cyclone, tornado. hurricane,
etc, are so Unfortunately applied to such
storms that great confusion has arisen in
the reports which have been written con-
corning these phenomena. The term cy-
clone is applied by meteorolOgists to all
kinds of atmospheric disturbances in
which the barometric pressure decreases
toward central region and there is a
spiral inward movement of the air toward
this center, so that all atmospheric whirls
of this nature receive the generic name
cyclone, no matter whether they are of
large or small extent.
Cyclones of the TOrrid Zone.
There are cyclones of the torrid zone
which in their greatest developments are
called in the West Indies hurricanes ana
in the East Indies typhoons. These at
mospheric whirls are nearly all circular
in form, and vary from a few miles to
several hundred miles in diameter, and
they are charac terized by great violence
OF wind and copious rainfall. The present
West Indian hurricane belongs TO this
class. There are cyclones of the temper
ate and polar zones, which are usually
elliptical in form, and cover a region al
least several hundred miles and sometimes
one or two thousand miles in diameter.
They are of less intensity than the hurri-
canes, and are the areas of low barOmetric
pressure which sweep across the United
States, usually in an easterly direction,
at intervals of two or three days, and give
as our ordinary storms of wide extent.
These cyclones are frequently accompa-
MED by secondary cyclones of limited ex-
tent, but intense energy, which are called
tornadoes. The diameters of tornadoes
vary from only few feet up to perhaps
a mile, but within these limited dimensions
they are by far the most destructive or
any storms.
There seem to be certain regions on the
earth's surface which are Vertable cy-
clone-breeding belts, and one of these lies
just to the east of the West Indian Islands.
The warm, moist air of this region during
the months of July August, September
and October seems to be in condition
of unstable equilibrium which is just suit
ed TO the formation of atmospheric whirl-
winds or cyclones from rs TO 200 or 300
miles in diameter.
These West Indian cyclones have a cir
cuation of the air around the center in "A
direction opposite 10 that of the hands of
a watch held horizontally and face up.
our American meteorologist, William Far
rel proved that this direction of the whirl-
wind was the result of the action of the
earth's diurRal rotation, and that cyclones
IN the southern hemisphere would have a
wind circulation in a direction with the
hands sof "A watch. The barometric pnes-
sure at the center of this whirl may be
two or three inches less than on the outer
boundary; that Is, the air density at the
center is reduced about 10 per cent and
the air pressure increases from this center
toward the outer boundary but at some
distance from the center there is ring
or narrow zone of abnormally high baro-
metric pressure. The wind velocity in
creases from the outer boundary of the
hurricane toward the center, and here it
becomes very great, but directly at the
center there is an area, usually several
miles In diameter. where there is a calm
Clear Sky Mt the Center.
The hurricanes are accompanied by dense
clouds and immense quantities of rainfall
but directly at the calm center there Is
very frequently a clear sky, which mete-
biologists have called the eye of the storm
Hurricanes do not remain long station
ary. nor do they move in any haphazard
direction. Those of the West Indies appear
to drift along in the great equatorial west
erly current, and they have movement of
translation Il little to the north of west,
and an average velocity of perhaps ten or
twelve miles an hour, but as they approach
the American continent they assume a
more northerly course, ana nnally Veer
around toward the northeast. Sometimes
they so almost due west, and, crossing the
Gulf of Mexico, are either disspated in
Mexico or are turned northward up tSe
Mississippi valley. But usually they are
turned northward near our South Atlantic
coast and pursue a northeasterly course,
either along the coast or some hundreds of
miles inland, or over the Atlantic ocean at
some distance from the coast With the
northward progress of the hurricanes. they
gradually increase in dimensions or later
al extent, but their intensity decreases ana
when one of them reaches the latitude,
say, of Boston. it is hardly TO be distin-
guisned from a strongly developed cyclone
Of middle ATTITUDES which mas crossed the
United States from the West. When these
hurricanes pass along the coast or near
X they give us the terrible storms which
we sometimes experience in the late sum
mer or early fall months When
they pass along far out at
sea, we know nothing of them except
through the reports of vessels in their
tracks, and The high ocean swell which is
observed all along the coast, when there is