, 1908-03-18

$1,000 %
this movement had come from the west 1t is
not easy to explain why there had been no
earlier evidence of it here, for it was not till
"Wednesday night that a strong wind began
to blow here from Mest-northWest. Had the
cyclone, then, come Town from SO far to the
north that it could not make itself felt here
earlier except by the slight fall in the baro-
meter, which it will be remembered COM
menced on the 1st instant Perhaps this is
the solution, and if we suppose the centre to
nave been turning slowly inwards, and
to have entered the Caribbean on the
night of Saturday the 7th, afterwards
moving rapidly westwards, the whole OF
the weather conditions here would be
fairly we'll explained. If such a thing has
occurred it is quite unusual but there is
nevertheless some evidence for It's possibility.
During the cool season OF the year most
of the Atlantic cyclones originate on the
North American continent and cross the
ocean fur to the north should, however,
such a storm not take that route it would
be bound to come south, for the region of
high barometer over the central part of the
N~orthAtlantic would compel it TO take q
southern route. Looking back over some pilot
charts for March we find marked the track OF a
storm moving along about the 2Ith parallel
from aoeSt to east. It's position is marked
on each day from the 10th to the l4th OF
March 1898; it's distance north from these
islands was about 600 miles and 1t was NOV
ing about 200 miles daily. Here we see,
then, the possibility of q storm centre pass
ing from west to east Ill q latitude where
such centres commonly take the opposite
dlrectiou.If we suppose that the high barom-
eter region has recently extended itself I'M
usually far to the south, then we can think
of the recent storm as something like the
one of 1878, only beginning somewhat tarth-
er north and being forced by the high
barometer region more to the south.
The theory of q cyclonic movement such as
that supposed, harmonizes fairly we'll with
what followed for on Saturday evening
9th inst) the barometer dropped four hum
dredths from the previous evening and at
4 a. IN. on Sunday the 9Th had fallen to
20. 83, at which point it remained till about
8 o'clock am. The wind at the same time
swung round through northeast to east,
and later in the day to southeast, I'M
plying apparently that a cyclone centre
had passed out of the Atlantic into the
Caribbean and was passing south of these IS
lands. It is difficult, no doubt, to reconcile
all the facts as we know them, with this
theory, but in the absence of fuller obser-
vations, it seems reasonable.
Possibly then, the cause Of the recent
disturbance was q clycone to the north of
our islands, at first distant, but moving to
southeastern SO approaching nearer to US, then
moving south and finally turning to the west
and entering the Caribbean.
Against this theory is the fact that no
high clouds were seen moving froih the east,
as we should have expected with a storm
centre out to the northeast. The only high
clouds observed, namely OH Friday 20th Feb.
Saturday the 10Th and Sunday the lst
March, were moving from west by north on
the first of those three days and rather fast
from west bysouth on the End and Bird days
Ordinarily this should mean a low barome-
ter to the southwest but it should be noted
that high clouds are generally rare at this
time of yea1, SO that it ought perhaps not
to be surprising if there were none to an
nounce the possible neighbourhood of a
storm centre northeastward Of us.
That the Sea to the north was widely dis
turbed appears from the Par{nao'S report
of rough weather the entire way but 1T IS
hot possible, without details, to say what
connection, if any, existed betweeH-the :
weather experienced by her and the wea-
ther here in the Danish Islands