The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-14
Topeka STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HASKIN, Director,
Washington, D. c.
THIS WINTER.

winter will go down in the annals of
the weather bureau as wonderful
and inexplicable phenomenon. The
eastern half of the United states is
! buried under snow and ice and bitten
by a degree of cold which makes this
in many sectionsfthe most severe win
ter in the history of the bureau. while
January easily takes rank as the most
severe month IN half a century. The
Pacific coast region. meanwhile, and
to great extent all of the country
west of the Rockies is having a season
of warmth which has literally brought
spring at the end of December.
In fact, the scientists say that this
unnatural warmth in the west is a
good deal more remarkable than the
cold in the east. We are so much inn
pressed with our own billiards. and
ice jams that we have not paid much
attention to conditions across the big
mountains Yet the Sierra Nevadas,
which were named for the enormous
SHOWS that usually pile up in their
passes, that practically cut off all ac-
cess to California from the east IN
the days of the Argonauts and trap
ped many a traveller to his death, have
this year remained almost free OF
memory of man.
While the ice ponds of New York
are freezing to their bottoms so that
it is impossible to harvest the ice,
while eastern rivers are choked and
damned by the piling floes. in the
Pacific coast states. and far east
as the foot of the Rockies they are
having spring. 1t is reported from
southern Idaho and eastern Washing
ton and Oregon that the leaf buds are
| n N
some sections fruit trees were about
TO bloom at the end of December. In
valleys which have often been under
snow at this time of the year, young
grass is springing.
The United States is this year
sharply divided by q line which starts
somewhere near Kalispell, Mont, and
runs along the foot of the Rockies to
the vicinity of Del Rio, Tex, into
region of bitter winter and one of I'M
| timely sDring. Some deep SHOWS nave
piled up on the eastern slope of the
Rockies, but on the western side they
are remarkably light.
The scientists are easily able to
trace the movements of the great air
masses which have brought about
strange contrast of extremes; but why
these air masses should have left
their accustomed paths is a matter
for speculation.
wind and fall of rain and snow which
we call weather are caused. dynami-
cally, by the procession across the
continent of masses of air, some OF
which are cold and some warm.
These ire the areas of high and low
barometric pressure which are delin
Gated on the weather map. In a gen.
eral way. the weather is a procession
of relative warm air masses, followed
by masses of cold dry air. The first
Al, ~ ri
and rain-the second bring the low
temperatures, as the heavy cold air
rushes in to fill the place Of the
lighter and warmer masses. Now
many of the winter storms which
cross the eastern United States origi-
cific, often in the vicinity of the
Aleutian Islands, come south down,
the coast, then turn and follow the
Canadian border: sweeping over the
| wave takes about the same path.
Thus the greatest intensity of both
| the storms and the cold is felt in
Canada and the northern tier of
| states, while our central and south
| Atlantic regions feel only the mild
This year, for some unknown rea-
| son, the procession of air masses
wandered from its accustomed path,
| dropping far South and cutting right
"
| The result was that while the winter
| was not SO far from normal in the
| north, it was a record breaker in
southern New England and New
| York, which got the full force of
storm and cold for the first time in a
| half century. In the same way, the
| South Atlantic and Southern states
felt far more of it than they are ac-
customed to; SO that even Saint Au-
justine. Florida, saw a furry of
| overwhelmed by a fall of four inches
| These weather movements were de-
| Elected as usual by the Rocky Noun
southern dip, they followed the East
ern foothills of the range very close
| ly. At the same time it happened
| that the storm movements which
usually strike the Pacific Coast were
for some reason lacking this winter.
| This combination of circumstances
produced the startling result of q
| country divided by line approx
mately following the continental d.
| vide into a region of abnormal cold
| and one of abnormal warmth Every
| where west of that line the tempera-
lures have been from three to twelve
degrees above normal and everywhere
east of 1T they have been from three
Ito twelve degrees normal
There is practically no exception to
this, nor is there any gradual merg-
ing of the areas of high and low tenn
perature. Mountain states like the
DakotaS and Montana are having
temperatures uniformly above nor
NAL N their western portions and
uniformly below normal in the east
These contrasting climatic areas
| having been mapped by the weather
| men, and the Grant paths of the
4 storms traced and charted, they are
| now trying to determine why these
T things happened. Obviously, if such
| a winter as this could be forecast,
| much of the damage which is caused
| could be warded off
1nasmuch as the sun is the source
of all the heat that reaches the earth.