Scientific Serials

Abstract

Zeitschrift der Oesterreichischen Gesellschaft für Meteorologie, Dec. 15.—To this number Dr. Prestel contributes an article on lines of cirrus as a means of foretelling storms. Storm signals he presumes to be inadequate for warning sailors of an approaching gale. He has compared during last year the indications of cirrous streaks with the weather shown by the charts to be prevalent on each day when his observations were made. From all the instances in which the streaks were well developed, he comes to the conclusion that the currents of the upper air do not follow the law of Buys Ballot; that is, that in the region of cirrus the air has neither a cyclonic nor anticyclonic movement, but streams from the point of highest pressure in the area of high pressure to the point of lowest pressure in the area of low pressure.—Herr Köppen, having remarked the tendency of cyclones to follow closely upon one another, gives a table for Northern Russia of the intervals which most commonly separate them. Of 107 cyclones, occupying 393 days in the territory, 33 per cent, came in less than twenty-four hours after their predecessors; 32 per cent, after an interval of one day; 19 per cent. after two or three days; 19 per cent, after four, five, or six days; and 18 per cent, after seven, eight, nine, or ten days.—The observations of M M. Fautrat and Sartiaux, by which it appeared that more rain fell within than without the forest of Halatte, are objected to on account of the disturbing influence of wind, which blows less stongly at the one position, six metres above tree-tops, than at the other, fifteen metres above the plain.