Evening star., 1953-01-30
October Broke Record
As Driest and Coolest
Same Conditions EurIier
Would Mean Disaster
By Thomos R. Henry


Last October was phenomenal
month.
It was absolutely the driest month
known in the United States in 86 years.
or since accurate records are available.
It also brought the lowest tempera-
lures. by long margins, ever experienced
in early fall over most of the country.
Fortunately, it was at harvest time.
Had the same conditions occurred dur
ing the growing season they would
have brought a major disaster,
The Weather Bureau, after intensive
analysis of its records from all over
the continent. has arrived at general
picture Of what happened.
First, high wall of heavy. cold air
became established from the Arctic
southwark over the Rocky Mountains.
It might as well have been a stone
wall miles high so far as general cir
culation of the atmosphere was con-
cerned. This wall, reaching higher into
the sky than ever before recorded for
high pressure ridge in this area,
started forming early in September.
No Resistance Against Cold.
The whole country east Of this wall
became low-pressure trough through
which there was practically no resis-
tance to the flow of Arctic air over the
continent. About the first of October, q
mass of exceptionally cold, dry air be-
gan to build up over the ice-covered
Beaufort Sea. north of Alaska. This
mass built up until it toppled over.
Fr1nnra Vryoc iefo e. -
ward flow. There was no water to be
squeezed out of it. The high wall over
the Rockies prevented moisture coming
over the continent from the Pacific.
Moisture-laden air from the tropics
encountered the dry air over Florida
and dumped its rain. Florida was the
only State with higher than normal
rainfall.
For the Nation as a whole the aver
age rainfall for the month was q trile
over a half-inch, only 26 per cent Of
normal and "the least precipitation on
both an absolute and relative scale for
all the months in the long Weather
Bureau record" In the Mississippi VAL
ley and westward to the Rockies, many
States had less than 10 per cent nor
AAAoA 4oAAAAe~AAs &AA AoOVS says O4IC WCdL1lCE
Bureau report. "a large portion of this
region, comprising more than a third
Of the total area Of the United States,
went without any rainfall during the
entire month. At Salt Lake City, there
were 81 consecutive fainless days. LOU
isiana and Mississippi suffered the sec
ond longest rainleSs period on record.
"East of the Mississippi, precipitation
generally was not so deficient as in the
West, but most States reported less
than SO per cent Of their normal Oc-
tober rainfall"
Few Economic Consequences.
The greatest Of all droughts, however,
does not appear to have had any very
serious economic consequences. More
than half the States east of the Rockies,
however, reported serious grass and
brush fires. Thousands Of acres of grass
and timberlands were scorched and, in
some places, fires got out of control.
Heavy smoke pals lay over the land.
Planting and termination of winter
wheat was seriously retarded.
The Beaufort Sea air warmed some
what as it came southwark, but some
remained very cold. The low tempera-
lures at various places broke all rec
ordS. There was an all-time minimum
of IL degrees at Rochester, MINI, on
October 20. Elkins, w. Va, had a rec
ord-breaking low Of II on October 81.
Augusta, Ca, went below freezing Oc-
tober 80. Dayton, Ohio, experienced q
low Of % on october 81.
The great drought hardly could have
been predicted, except from day to
day. There was no way of telling when
the high wall above the Rockies would
start breaking down or when the flow
of cold air from the Beaufort Sea re-
gion would become exhausted.
1t was just an example of something
which can happen. the Weather Bureau
analysts believe, with very little likeli-
hood that the same pattern, in all its
details, will recur again in this genera
ton. They see no evidence pointing to
a trend towards change in the weather
map.