Evening star., 1940-03-19
Of Stors, Men .s,,..
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.

By Thomas r. Henry.
The story Of the winter which ends
Thursday is that Of one Of the strangest
weather setups known to American
meteorologists.
The middle of December found mass
Of heavy, cold air settled over Canada.
Its southern border formed mild
weather wall. Pacific lows-smaller
masses of light, warm air-passed just
south Of it, and farmers in Wisconsin
and Minnesota were writing to the
United States Weather Bureau for ex-
in early winter.
Fed by air from the neighborhood Of
the North Pole the high kept increasing
until it became one of the deepest and
heaviest in the records Of the weather
bureaus either Of the United States or
Canada. Gradually it pushed its way
southwark. 1t became 50 deep that at
one time most Of the Rocky Mountains
were completely immersed in 1t. The
path of the Pacific lows, bearers Of
balmy days, correspondingly was pushed
southwark.
There was nothing in the way to
prevent the southwark progress of the
cold, neavy mass. New cold air con-
stantly was being formed over the Arctic
Ocean and added to it. BY mid -Janu-
airy the cold ocean was over a good
- To;f %ota c;{
Birmingham, Ala, were experiencing
zero temperatures. The cold brought
snow in its wake. The snow brought
succession of what forecasters call
radiation nights"-clear, dry nights
when the snow cover could cool the
atmosphere as much as or more than
it had been heated during the day.
The result was the coldest January on
record
Practically the entire United States,
with the exception OF the Pacific Coast,
New England and the area around the
Eastern Great Lakes, was immersed In
air from the North Pole. New England
and the Lakes area were seldom more
than normally cold. They were in an
other current of North Pole air which
flowed down over Greenland, Hudson
Bay and the Gulf of ST. Lawrence, but
which never got the buildup of the in
terror air ocean.
Ordinarily such cold weather mass
would be rather unstable and break up
after few days. But, the forecasters
say, the more this one grew the more
stable it seemed to become 1t began to
break during February with return of
more normal weather to most Of the
country.
The approach of the vernal equinox,
which is astronomically spring, but may
be far from it so far as weather is con-
cerned, found the weather map in what
forecasters of the United States Weather
Bureau described as an awful mess"
Everything, they said, was in state of
stagnation. when any kind Of prediction
is extraordinarily difhcult. There is
mass OF heavy, cold air over Alaska and
much of the Northwestern Pacific extend
ing to the latitude of Northern California.
Out in the middle of the Pacific is
fairly large Iow-pressure area. If it
were free to move inland it might be
expected to bring balmy days Actually
it is completely boxed in and cannot
stir in any direction until the high pres
to break up.
The records for the whole winter now
being compiled show that in spite of the
fact that February and early March were
exceptionally wet, rainfall has been
deficient over most Of the country for
the season as whole. The deficiency is
piled on top Of that of the dryest autumn
on record.
From the Rocky Mountains westward,
the records show, the winter was excep-
tionally wet. The only exception was
Arizona, which had only about three
fourths normal rainfall. Nebraska and
Kansas had slightly wetter winter than
normal. Otherwise, from the Great
Plains eastward, the winter was dry.
New Jersey, Arkansas, Illinois and In
diana had the lowest percentages, rang
ing from so to 66 per cent Of normal.
There were slight deficiencies in the
Middle and Gulf States.
While February rains deluged the Far
West-most of the Pacific Coast States
had twice the normal amount-States
like Missouri and Nebraska remained
below average and some of the other
Midwest States barely made the grade
One result has been that spring farm
work is slow to get underway. There
has been little spring planting in the
South, but the topsoil has been too wet
over most of the Eastern half of the
country. South Of Kansas it is dis
couragingly dry and heavy duststorms
already have started in Western Okla
homa. The weather has been too cold
for the termination OF seeds. About the
only good feature Of the winter from
the farmers point of view has been the
fact that continued cold weather has
prevented premature budding Of fruit
trees with the prospect that, given nor
mally advancing spring and fair spring
and summer rains, a good crop can be
anticipated.
With the existing stagnation in the
North, Weather Bureau forecasters are
less willing than ever to make any gen.
eral spring predictions.