prior to December 12th caused the soil ies of are bringing welcome to become very dry and considerable to Southern California.—Claude irrigation was necessary before that A. Cole, U. S. Bureau, Fruit- date. On December 30 to Jan. 1, Frost Service, Azusa, Calif. District there occurred a which shat- (excerpts from Supplemental Re- tered records of heavy of many port, of 1933-34). years' standing and did many thou- The mildness of Oregon's weather sands of dollars of damage to the in contrast to the severity of New citrus industry in this district, as well England's in the same latitude, led as other sections, particularly to the the Portland Oregonian to philoso- westward of the San Gabriel Valley. phize on the "small wonder that the The total for the storm pioneers came West," to which the was 16.33 inches at Azusa and Transcript retorts: "The Ore- amounts ranging from 10 to 16 inch- gonians are becoming enervated by es elsewhere in this section. their soft . If the hardy pion- The rains of the were warm eers who went West had not been and but little has been deposited toughened by chilly weather like that in the mountains. As the season of ours of a week or two ago there closes at the end of February, a ser- would have been no Oregon. . .

SIDELIGHTS ON THE COLD WINTER IN THE EAST Compiled by CHARLES F. BROOKS Though warm weather has re- The waters gathered in the short turned there are some features of the streams of southern New England, winter of 1933-34, necessarily omitted and the Charles on the 7th reached from the general article by C. H. its highest stage in many years. Cold Pierce, in the March BULLETIN, which weather again however, held some of may still be of interest. The human the waters, and not until April did effects of a cold winter in the eastern the main floods of the longer rivers, United States were surprising, yet in and those of northern New England, general much the same as in other come from the melting of the great severe . Accounts of the win- accumulations of snow. ter of 1917-18,1 which averaged much Iced ducks and highways.—When colder than the past winter and was tropical air overran a layer of very cold over more of the East, though cold polar air over New York and also very warm in the West, could New England, Dec. 15, rain made almost be taken for that of 1933-34. glaze so rapidly that ducks dropped The similarity holds even with re- from the sky at Worcester, their spect to the suddenness with which feathers covered with ice. One died, the winter ended. With the begin- the other was picked up and taken ning of March, 1934, the indoors where its ice soon melted and rose rapidly and for a week there it was fed. Motorists found hilly was a great thaw, with the maximum highways unnavigable, so smooth and temperature at Boston reaching 63°F. hard was the ice, and a traffic delay of some 3 hours occurred on the New- 1 C. F. Brooks, The "old-fashioned" winter of 1917-18, Geogr. Rev., May, 1918, v. 5, pp. 405- buryport turnpike, part of U. S. 414; and Science, June 7, 1918, N.S. v. 47, Route 1, till it could be heavily sand- pp. 565-566. P. C. Day, The cold winter of 1917-18. Mo. ed throughout. One baker bound for Weather Rev., Dec., 1918, v. 46, pp. 570-580, 4 figs, 24 charts. Boston, sold out to the other stalled

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC May Bulletin American Meteorological Society 145 motorists and was saved the trip. 39° 15' N, long. 62° 10' W. The There were an "unprecedented" num- was NNW, force 4 and drove the ber of accidents, skidding automobiles spout with it toward the south-south- being responsible for 3 deaths and east at about 15 knots. The air tem- numerous injuries in New England. perature was 40 and the intake water Eight more weather deaths followed, 73°F. There were snow- about. Dec. 16-17. Reports in the Mo. The pressure was 30.24 inches.—A. Weather Rev., for Dec., 1933, p. 376, Bryde of Panaman motor ship Wink- indicate that in New York City there ler, in Hydro g. Bull., Jan. 10, 1934. were 3 deaths, and all railroad and Well-defined spouts were observed by motor service was interrupted. Serv- C. L. Cluett on the same date 200 ice was abandoned on some elevated miles to the north from the American lines. Trenton, N. J., reported 6 per- steamer Washington (lat. 42° 11', sons seriously injured. Scranton, Pa., long. 62° 10'), where the air tempera- had dangerous streets and highways, ture was 28-30. The spouts were on Buffalo experienced much traffic de- the front of a heavy snowsquall.— lay and numerous accidents; and sim- Hydrog. Bull., Dec. 6, 1933. ilar conditions in Wisconsin, Dec. 14, The invasion of the tropics by the killed one person and injured 24 in polar continental air of December Milwaukee, of which 9 were in auto- produced on the 12th and mobile accidents and 15 from falls. the 27th over the Gulf Stream. The Strong blew ice-laden wires principal one observed the 12th, in down. lat. 30° 26' N, long. 74° 54' W, passed Polar front .—As polar air over the forward part of the Italian displaced the tropical, a tornado ship Maria within 15 feet of the formed near Shreveport, La., killing 4 bridge, without bursting. It was and injuring 19 people. At one plan- about 60 feet in diameter. "Heavy tation three negro cabins were blown water and spray rotating clockwise away with such force that the ground from the sea to a height of about 80 was left bare. An A.P. dispatch quot- feet covered the forward part of the ing Dr. L. T. Baker, says: ship for about 1 minute. The spout continued then in a southerly direc- "the Negroes didn't have any warn- ing of the tornado. They were stand- tion disappearing in about 1% hours. ing or sitting around in their homes There were several other spouts on one minute and the next minute the the eastern horizon from 6 to 8 miles storm had passed, their homes and possessions had vanished and they away. The sky was overcast; cumu- were wondering what it was all about. lo-nimbus; wind NW., force 3; sea Three or four of the less seriously in- temperature 74° F., of the air (dry jured were stripped of their clothes bulb 68° F. and (wet) 65° F.—Hy- by the wind and left stark naked." drog. Bull., Feb. 14, 1934. Polar front tornodoes on Feb. 25 On the 27th another spout was ob- took two score lives in the South. served almost at the same spot, lat. Polar front waterspouts.—The cold 30° 09' N, long. 74° 24' W, by O. Do- waves of the past winter were prolif- scher, of the German ship Kattegat, ic sources of waterspouts over the for 17 minutes. When the spout was tropical waters of the Atlantic. Near nearest the ship the wind shifted the front of the record-breaking cold from N to NNE and the temperature mass of mid-November a small wa- fell six degrees.—Hydrog. Bull., Jan. terspout formed on Nov. 17 in lat. 31, 1934. At the same as this

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC , five others in a bunch published in the Meteorologische were sighted from the American ship Zeitschrift, in October, 1931. . . ."— Texas in lat. 25° 32', long. 79° 39', C. F. Talman, in Why the Weather ? (S.S.), Jan. 4, 1934. several hundred miles southwest of the first. F. B. Tymoszko reports The snowstorm and cold wind of that all were rotating counterclock- Dec. 26-28, before the severe cold wise. wave struck, claimed 23 lives in New England, from heart-failure due to On the arrival of the Pastores in over-exertion, from traffic and coast- New York, Mar. 12, Capt. W. J. Close ing accidents, from exploding oil told of having to zig-zag his ship to stoves, from freezing, and from avoid numerous waterspouts off the drowning at sea. Twelve more suc- Delaware Capes. He saw a dozen at cumbed on the cold 29th, and nearly one time, while Dr. John H. Cunning- 2000 were treated for frostbite at ham, of Boston, said he had counted hospitals in Boston. Then four more a total of three dozen.—A. P. died, mostly on account of traffic ac- Snow rollers again.—After a two- cidents in a sudden thaw. When inch fall of soft, moist snow which frozen sprinkler systems in New covered the ground evenly Dec. 18, at York thawed, the fire department an- Howe, Ind., and vicinity, people were swered 128 false alarms in one day. called to their windows during the "Vapor."—Ships at sea were not evening by the sound of a sudden only weighed down with tons and tons of wind. Where there was suf- of frozen spray, but also had to pro- ficient light watchers were astonished ceed slowly in the bitter cold that to see on every side snowballs rolling rose like steam from the cold though along apparently of their own voli- relatively warm water. The German tion. Many of these were rolled un- ship Haimon required three days for til they reached a length of over two the overnight run from St. John, N. B. feet and a diameter of a foot when to Boston. Two hundred miles at sea they grew too heavy for the wind to the coast guard cutter Cayuga found propel. The area in which the snow- the "vapor" so thick they could not balls formed was about 40 miles in see the bow of the vessel from the length and 15 miles wide, extending bridge. from New Elkhart to the neighbor- hood of Angola.—Chicago Sunday With the of Jan. 30-31, Tribune, Dec. 24, 1933, courtesy, W. a "heavy vaporous sea with poor vis- Elmer Ekblaw. ibility" was encountered over the Gulf Stream by the American ship "A clipping reaches me from Belle Center, Ohio, telling of a strong wind Sun from lat. 31° 47' N, long. 78° 12' that lately rolled 'snowballs as big as W, till Diamond Shoal lightship was 10-gallon milk cans' in that vicinity. passed, at which time the sea was 74° The comparison to milk cans is more and the air 35°, wind NNW, force apt than the term fsnowballs,' because the interesting formations known as 6-7. "Occasionally columns of vapor 'snow rollers' are more or less cylin- would rise resembling waterspouts." drical; but they are generally hol- —Report of J. T. Miller, in Hydrog. lowed out at the ends, so that they approximate the shape of a lady's Bull., Feb. 14, 1934. muff. If the rolling occurs in sever- The coldest winds of February al directions, as may happen in ex- caused unusually heavy blankets of ceptional cases, the mass will be more "vapor" (steam fog) over the Gulf nearly spherical. A photograph of perfectly ball-shaped snow rollers was Stream near Cape Hatteras. On Feb.

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC 9, when the coldest wind ever known vapor was rising in spirals from the there was blowing over eastern New sea to mast-head high, and it was im- York and New England the British possible to hear another vessel's ship Montrolite while crossing the whistle. But owing to the cautionary Gulf Stream about 100 miles east of expedient of the searchlight on the Diamond Shoals Lightship (Cape northbound steamer her position was Hatteras) was bucking a fresh gale made known when a fair distance from the north, with rain, air 44°F. away."—Hydrog. Bull., Feb. 28, 1934. and sea 67° F. At noon the wind in- On Feb. 27 from about 20 miles east creased to a whole gale and the rain of Diamond Shoal Lightship to lat. turned to driving snow. This with 33° 40' N., long. 75° 00' W., L. J. vapor rising in spirals from the sea, Graugaard of the American steamer made visibility impossible. About 3 Pueblo reported that an unusually p. m. the sky cleared overhead; a heavy blanket of vapor was encount- black bank encircled the hori- ered in which the visibility was cut zon to an altitude of about 30°. As down to 500 feet. The sea temperature the sun shone through the rays strik- was 74° F. and the air 40° F. The ing the spiral spouts of vapor on the vapor rose to a height of about 30 sea turned the scene into one that feet .—Hydrog. Bull., Mar. 21, 1934. could be likened to Dante's Inferno. Boston apologizes.—Boston at last The snow had stopped, the air tem- was forced to an apology for its perature dropped to 25°, and the sea weather, when during the Am. Assn. was 70°F. The great banks of black Adv. Science convention, a biting wind held their position, excepting Dec. 29, drove the mercury down to fragments seemingly torn adrift, —17° F. The Herald says: ". . . didn't which were carried in ragged strips you enjoy this fleeting glimpse of a across the sky. When the stars came robust Canadian winter? It will only out those around the zenith seemed to make our good old New England sun- have double their normal magnitude. shine seem all the more precious when The vapor spiral clouds rising from it returns. Besides, we doubt if the the sea increased as the difference in weather has been any better in Flori- temperature between air and sea in- da. Ah, there, Los Angeles/" As a creased. At 10 p. m. the temperature matter of fact, the "good old New of the sea water dropped to 52°F. and England sunshine" was at its best all the vapor gradually disappeared. day the 29th—it showed the greatest Captain Cameron states that he has radiation total for any day of the en- often observed vapor in the vicinity tire month! Perhaps that is why the of the Gulf Stream in the winter time temperature did not fall to 30 below but never to such an extent as de- zero instead of being stopped by the scribed above. sunshine in its precipitate downward "Second Officer E. W. Glines, of the course at 8.20 a. m. American steamer Tejon, Capt. J. M. While Boston was saying "this is Tosh, desires to thank the thoughtful very unusual," Fairmont, W. Va., northbound shipmaster who used his was almost claiming to have gone one searchlight on the morning of Febru- better on Mark Twain's 368 kinds of ary 9, 1934, in the Gulf Stream off weather he claimed to have experi- Cape Lookout. The weather was enced in New England in 24 hours: overcast, northeast gale prevailing "Saturday before Christmas boys with a heavy sea; thick fast-moving bathed in the Monongahela river;

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC Sunday brought and thun- conversation — Katherine Hepburn, der; Christmas day was warmish; perhaps." Tuesday brought snow and Wednes- day morning saw the thermometer at Was the return of the Florida boom 3 degrees above zero; yesterday a just a part of the general recovery bright sun hoisted the temperature to this winter, or was it due to the cold 62 degrees.—A. P., Dec. 28. winter up north? "Rubber weather."—The cold wave and sudden recovery at the end of De- An Arctic murre was caught in Ab- cember furnished Cartoonist Dahl ington, Mass., Jan. 24. This was the with a fine opportunity. In the Bos- third known instance of a murre be- ton Herald for Jan. 3, he published a ing found in these latitudes. group of six weather cartoons. The first shows "Temperature changed 98 The high wind of January 17 near- degrees in 2 days (news item). ly tipped over a three-story frame Weather Bureau gets an extension building which was being moved in thermometer (like a telescope) for East Boston. After several hours' New England and vicinity." The work the house was placed on an even second picture shows "Sound weather keel again. supporters urge Roosevelt to raise the A succession of cold waves.—The mercury content of the thermometer late January cold wave, which so so it can't go below zero. (Sneezing) rapidly overspread the eastern United ear lap manufacturers, however, ad- States and which came with a sudden- vised the President it would hurt ness illustrated by the 53-degree drop business." The third picture shows from a -like temperature of 51 murky London: "With rain in Cali- the afternoon of the 28th at Boston fornia, snow down south and every- to —2° F. at 9 the next morning, was thing in New England U. S. Climate more uncomfortable and inconvenient has fallen way off on the foreign ex- than deadly. The gale caused consid- change. Two of our aren't erable trouble to shipping. worth one English fog today." An- The gale of the 29th blew a man off other picture, of two red-nosed men a passenger train as he was walking slopping through a windy rainstorm from one car to another. He sustained and greeting each other with "Nice a fractured skull and serious cuts and day!" and "Lovely weather," bears bruises. Six people died in New Eng- the caption: "Weather experts in land, four of the cold, one from a fall- Washington could re-value our cli- ing wall at a fire, and one from being mate. That would set us on an even so bundled up he did not see an ap- footing with Greenland and Cape proaching auto which struck him. Horn. A picture of falling "snow- Similarly, a school bus with frosted flakes made in U. S." says "Russian windows was struck by a train in recognition should help some because New York and 10 of the 29 children Siberia has a big demand for our in it were injured. Many deaths else- kind of weather." Finally, "If the where resulted directly from the cold, mercury keeps fluctuating we may or indirectly in traffic accidents of have to go off the weather standard fires. A total of 10,000 men on CWA and make something else the basis of forest projects had to suspend work.

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC An liner was kept for several other, like the elephants holding one another's tails in a circus parade. hours in the lower bay of Boston har- Each successive mass of freezing air bor waiting for the wind to subside. has originated somewhere in the un- The cold wave of February 9 re- peopled wastes of northern Siberia. It has moved across Alaska and sulted in 11 deaths and thousands of northern Canada to the Hudson Bay frostbites in New England. The tem- region. Then it has swung south- peratures were the lowest on record ward, to vent its fury on New Eng- practically throughout New England land and the Atlantic States. This cold-wave track is quite abnor- and in eastern New York, and came mal, says J. B. Kincer of the U. S. with a wind, which though not so Weather Bureau. In ordinary win- strong as at the end of January was ters, cold waves start their southward enough to make the cold very pene- swing much farther to the west, mov- ing down the Great Plains area and trating. Some Canadian Northwest slanting eastwardly across the coun- Mounted Police visiting Boston said try. But this winter the West has they preferred the calm 70 below been almost basking, under relatively weather of northern Canada. balmy skies. The Weather Bureau's promise of The closing gale and snowstorm of a quick respite Feb. 10 from the se- the winter, Feb. 26 caused 6 deaths vere cold of the 9th was greeted with in New England, but also put thou- enthusiasm by Cartoonist Dahl in the sands of men to work again shoveling. Boston Herald, who depicted a noon- One good turn to shipping was the re- time cold weather armistice, with lease of a steamer stranded on a "dancing in the streets—Brrr," fac- shoal off Winthrop by the storm of tory whistles tooting, the "Anti-sub- the week before. It took another zero weather association," its work storm tide to lift it off bottom. With accomplished, having its final meet- the snowstorm in the north, there ing, and chilly apartment house dwel- were tornadoes in the south, bringing lers notifying the fire department death to 17 and injuries to 100. they will cease tipping over their oil Weather Bureau stories made the heaters. Other pictures are that cars front page of the Buffalo newspapers will suddenly start, the ice will disap- every day in February, says Mr. J. H. pear from the harbor and it will once Spencer. A graphic picture of the again become safe for the old man daily temperature was presented in who insists that there used to be the form of a diagram with a heavy worse winters in the old days. horizontal line representing "Nor- mal" and vertical bars descending Apropos of the cold wave of Feb. from it to show the number of de- 19-21, Science Service telegraphed: grees each day was below normal. All Shakespeare might be appropri- but two in February were below nor- ately invoked, in the case of the ser- ies of cold waves that have successive- mal, the wrorst being Feb. 8 and 9, ly gripped the eastern United States with 32 and 34 below normal. The during the past three weeks, the lat- 20th was also cold, 27 deg. below nor- est of which is still causing misery mal. The sunshine, 63% of the pos- to everybody except the dealers in coal and furnace oil. sible, was almost a record amount for "One woe doth tread upon another's cloudy Buffalo. heel," recites the Bard, somewhere in Not only were fires more numerous Hamlet. than usual during the cold weather For the cold waves have followed a regular track, one right after the but also the snow hampered the move-

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC ment of fire apparatus. Much of the treal. Compared with the St. Law- business portion of Center Sandwich, rence, New York should be much eas- ier to control in respect to ice. From N. H., burned Feb. 27, while appara- an actual knowledge of the accom- tus from neighboring towns vainly plishments of these ice-breakers, New tried to reach it. York Harbor most assuredly should be equipped with such a fleet. They While motorists struggled with form a great safeguard to shipping their cars and gave up, the Boston and in addition to being useful in Elevated street railway enjoyed in- breaking up solid ice, can in the worst of weather conditions smash their creased travel and improved finances, way through the heavy floes and save in spite of $117,00 spent on snow re- many thousands of dollars* damage moval. to ocean liners, harbor piers and other equipment, besides keeping all chan- Ice.—At the close of February, nels open the year round for the free Cape Cod Bay was for the first time flow of commerce."—C. F. Talman, in in history filled with ice almost from Why the Weather? (SS.) shore to shore. It's an ill that blows no good.—February brought death and Ice bound populations, especially disaster in the wake of its record low Nantucket, found airplane service and its blanket- quite necessary for food, general sup- ing most of the country from the At- plies, and mail for days at a time dur- lantic to the Rockies. Crippled com- munications cooped up commuters in ing February. Suburbia. Business suffered by de- Ice-breakers.—As a sequel to the lays and the spoiling of goods in tran- recent spell of real winter in their sit—as the truckloads of frozen eggs vicinity, the shipping interests at that had to find new markets. Coal New York are urging a plan to pro- and milk famines were narrowly vide a fieet of eight ice-breakers to averted. keep the channels about that city open But there were compensations. in . Hitherto this task Many thousands of unemployed found has been left to the U. S. Coast Guard, work clearing away the snow. Rusty which lacks adequate equipment for sleighs were dragged from sheds to the purpose. When not needed at carry mail and food where automo- New York, such vessels would often biles were stalled in snowdrifts. Gar- be able to do good work farther up age men found the storm a bonanza. the Hudson. In its issue of March Sales of tire chains and anti-freeze 10, Shipping Register and World mixtures mounted. The clothing Ports comments favorably on this trade in the cities found itself project and points to the valuable swamped by the demand for flannel services performed by ice-breakers on underwear, while there was a rush the St. Lawrence, where they are said for hip boots, galoshes, arctics and to add at least thirty days a year to the rubbers. Ear muffs came back. Sev- season of navigation at Montreal. eral New York stores even went in "These powerful boats," we are for dainty colored ear muffs for wom- told, "are also used to prevent ice en. Sporting goods dealers sold skis jams, which, if not broken up, would and snowshoes to commuters, who in result in forming dams and flooding some cases checked them in their sub- much territory adjacent to the St. urban railroad stations. Coal dealers Lawrence River. For some weeks profited. Taxi-men, especially in now ice-breakers have been working suburbs, did a brisk business carry- in the St. Lawrence and even though ing people who ordinarily walked or the ice is the thickest it has been in drove their own cars. many years these powerful boats have Perhaps as great a blessing as any now worked as far up the river as was the silencing of the elderly people Sorel, keeping the channel open and who in recent years boasted of the smashing their way each day nearer old-fashioned winters of their child- to their ultimate goal, which is Mon- hood.—Literary Digest.

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 10/06/21 10:06 AM UTC