The Weather of the Past Week

Abstract

THE very disagreeable weather we have had these last few days deserves a passing notice. Strong persistent northerly winds for nearly a week have swept over the whole of the British islands. On Sunday and Monday a continuous north-easterly gale blew over Shetland and Orkney, completely interrupting all communication among these islands, accompanied with heavy rains, floods, and hailstorms; and at the same time much snow fell in the upland districts of the interior of North Britain, draping the mountains of Aberdeenshire and Perthshire in their winter covering of snow down nearly to their bases. On the other hand, in England and Scotland, much thunder and hail occurred towards the end of last week, and not a few lives were lost by the severity of the thunderstorms. These disagreeable and remarkable phenomena were attendants on an atmospheric depression signalled by the Meteorological Office on Thursday morning, last week, as about to advance over the more southern parts of these islands. The depression appeared in course, its centre following the line of the Cheviots; and its northern side being characterised by unwonted high pressures, it proceeded with singular leisureliness over the North Sea, and only reached Christiania by the morning of Monday. The slow onward rate of motion of this cyclone, the steep gradients formed on its north and north-west sides, and its southerly route across the North Sea readily explain the extent, strength, persistence, and disagreeably low temperature of the gale, and the unseasonable snowfalls which accompanied it. It is to such low depression-centres brooding over or slowly crossing the North Sea, that we owe our coldest summer weather; and it is a continued repetition of these in the critical months of June, July, and August that brings disaster to the farming interests. In the middle of June, 1869, a similar storm occurred when equally strong winds prevailed, when even more snow fell, particularly in the north-west of Great Britain, and temperature sank some degrees below freezing over extensive districts; but the storm was of shorter duration than the one we have just had. In this case, also, the cyclone formed steep gradients for northerly winds, and its centre crossed England and the North Sea, but it advanced over North-Western Europe at a more rapid rate than the present storm, which has formed so marked a feature of the weather of June, 1882.