34 MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW JANUARY,1932 TABLE1.-Averages, departures, and extremes of atmospheric pressure Off the California coast fresh to strong gales occurred at sea level, North Pacific Ocean and adjacent waters, January, 1939. at selected stations on the 11th to 14th and on the 19th) durin southward __ __ - incursions of the Aleutian LOW, or westwar 8 expansions Depar- to the coast of extensive LOWS over the United States. ture Statlona pressure from 3ighest Date Lowest Date In the Gulf of Tehuantepec northers of fresh gale force iormal were encountered on the 9th and 27th, and of moderate .~~_- ___ - - __ gale force on the 20th and 21st. I Inches Inch Inches Inchce Point Barrow 1 2...... -______..I 30.17 +o. 09 30.80 6 29.20 12 Conditions at Honolulu.-The prevailing wind at Hono- Dutch Harhor 1_.___...______._ I 29.78 +o. 20 30.34 ' 10 28.82 21 Et. Paul 1______.._-_-_-______I 29.73 +o. 10 sa 18 9 28.14 28 lulu was from the east, with a maximum velocity of 28 Kodiak 1______.______~--! 29.75 +a 16 30.62 30 28.98 9 miles from the same direction on the 11th. This January Juneau '______.______29.81 -0.07 30.69 30 29.03 5 TetOOnh Island 2 b--- . -.-.---____I 30.64 +a 08 30.67 22 29. 34 12 was the warmest there since 1889. Ban Francisco 3 8 ______1 30.16 +a 05 30.49 17 28.68 31 Meeatlan 1 8 _.._.______28.97 -0.05 30.04 8 28. 90 (1 Fog.-From the 3d until the loth fog formed over a Honolulu 2 ____.___.______._____30.01 +o. 01 30.15 26 28.80 31 Midway Island 1______.__..____ 28.94 -0. 08 30.36 23 L9. 40 14 considerably region between 160' west longitude and the Quam 1______.._._._..----I 29.84 -a 08 29.96 20 28.68 '4 American coast, 30' and 50' north latitude, and on a few h.lanila __ -...... ~ .! 28.95 -a ai 30.08 10 29.86 (3 Nahala .______...... -.-.I 3a23 +O. 15 30.40 I1 30. M 31 scattered days thereafter. Chichishinii~1.. __._ 30.12 +o. 11 30.44 21 29. eo 1 Nemuro 1 3 _.__~__.._.____-...__..I 28.99 . ------. 30.48 20 29.62 3 Haze.-"Very heavy haze due to volcanic dust from - - - Acatenango and Fuego that settle on the ship and sur- 1 DAtn based on 1 d.ully observatlon only with departures computed from liest H\uI- able normals related to time of observatlod. rounding waters," was reported by the American stearn- A m. and p. m. ohservations. ship Knoxville Oity, while in the Gulf of Tehuantepec on 8 For 24 to 29 days, with mising dates distributed over the mouth. 4 Aud on other dates the 21st. Similar observances were made by other ves- 8 Corrected to 24-hour mean. sels crossing the gulf on the 22d and 23d. Cyclones and gales.-General cyclonic activity slackenccl on the North Pacific during January, 1932, as compared SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURE OBSERVATIONS, JANUARY. with that of the preceding month. The result was R 1932 lessened number of stormy days, and of days with gale\ of the higher wind velocities (11 to 12). Among the By GILEYSLOCUM many storm reports contributed by seamen, R consider- A change in the general plan of presenting sea-surface able percentage of the wh!e showed gales thtit did not temperature data is initiated in this issue of the REVIEW. exceed force 8. The iiioiith as a whole niust be wnsidcrccl During the calendar year 1931 the REVIEWcarried data fairly stormy, however, and it may be noted that galm for 1930, the material appearing in the issues dated a were almost as frequent on the central and soutllern trans- year after the months in which the observations were PacXc routes as they were along the northern, which is made. Hereafter the data will be for the current rnonth a rather unusual condition. and year. The dates of greatest storm intensity, as indicated by The method of publishing a year late hnd the advantage reports of masimum-force gales, were those of the 2d-3d, of presenting complete or final figures. The new plan the 13th, and the 20th and 21st. On the 2d-3d a cyclone requires the omission of the relatively few reports which that had moved eastward from northern Japan intensified do qot reach the fles in time to be included. Final until central pressures were about 29 inches, and caused means, embodying all available material will, however, westerly gales of force 11 near 38O N., 155O E. On the be computed and published after the close of each year 13th, in connection with an energetic cyclone that moved in connection with a brief annual summary. into the Aleutian region from the Okhotsk Sea, a gale of force 11 was experienced south of the western Aleutians The disadvantage involved in publishing preliminary On the 20th and 2lst cyclonic conditions, spreading east- values subject to later slight revisions is not vital. Pre- ward, covered a great area in northern mid-ocean, during liminary values will be found to vary ordinarily by not the prevalence of which southeasterly gales of force 11-12 more than three-tenths of a degree from the final figures. were reported near 40° N., 175' W., and 46O N., 160' IT., Continuing discrepancies of this order would doubtless be and gales of lesser force over practically the entire extent significant in the areas from which these values are gath- of the LOW. ered, since the monthly and annual ranges are small, but Gales of force 9 and 10 were fairly frequent duriug such differences as will appear betwren the preliminary several intensifications of the Aleutian cyclone. The and ha1 figures will be in the nature of accidentals and table of gales, however, sufliciently indicates their dis- will therefore be of minor importance for purposes other tribution. than refined correlation computations, for which the cor- About January 10th a LOW with a tropical character- rected annual summaries should be used. istics formed south of Midway Island and spreading An exception in the proposed method o€ publication is rapidly northward, caused fresh north and northeast made in the case of the 1931 data, which have not yet been gales over a considerable stretch of the sea. It early presented in any form. To the gap between 1930 and established contact through B long trough with the LOW 1932, resulting from this change of plan, the data for 1931 over the eastern Aleutians, but it continued active in are presented in the present issue, summarized for the the neighborhood of Midway Island until the 14th, on whole year. The values for December, 1931, necessarily which day the Midway pressure dropped as low as 29.40 remain provisional but they will be revised as soon as inches. The LOW thereafter receded rapidly northward. practicable. Owing to the strength of the Asiatic HIGH, the north- A disadvantage of the plan o€ publishing n year late east monsoon attained the strength of a moderate gale (followed in 1931) was that the data were then too old to on several days, particularly from the 8th to llth, be- be of interest in connection with current weather. It is tween Luzon and the Nansei Islands. primarily to eliminate this disadvantage that the present East of the Hawaiian Islands, locally intensified trades plan, which will place the figures in the hands of the public which reached the force of a fresh gale, occurred on the within 90 days after the close of each month, is inaugu- 8th and from the 20th to 24th. rated. 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'I'ABm 1.-Preliminary mean sea-surface temperatures (OF.) in the and the Greater Antilles and outermost Lesser Antilles Caribbean Sea and Straits of Florida, January, 1032 on the north and east. The Mona Passage, the Wind- ward Channel south of 20' N., and the Yucatan Channel Caribbean Sea Straits of Florida west from Cape San Antonio to the eighty-fifth meridian, I I1 I I north on this meridian to 22' N., west to 87' W., and south Depar- Depar- QW- PdOd ture from Change ture from Change to the Yucatan Peninsula, are included. ter Mean 13-year from pre- Mean 13-year from pre- mean aedlng mean cedlng January, 1932, was a warm month in the Caribbean (1920- month (1020- month 1832) 1032) Sea, being the twenty-third consecutive month with a temperature at or above the 13-year mean (1920-1932).

OF. OF. OF. OF. I ______8ao +a6 ______77.3 STRAITS OF FLORIDA I1 ___..______70. ti +az ______76.0 I11 ______-____-____-78.6 +ae ______787 1V ...... 70.6 +as ______'186 The Straits of Florida data refer to the western part Month______79.6 +as -LO 76.6 of the Straits area, that bounded on the east by the eightieth meridian, on the north by the twenty-fifth Table 1 shows the preliminary mean temperatures in parallel, on the west by the eighty-fourth meridian, and the Caribbean Sea and the Straits of Florida for January, on the south by the Cuban coast. 1932. The month of January, 1932, was the warmest January CARIBBEAN SEA of record (1920-1932), being 0.8 above the previous warmest which occurred in 1924 and 1925, in both of The Caribbean Sea is defined as the area included which years the mean January temperature was 75.8' between the American Continents on the south and west in the Straits of Florida.

SUMMARY OF SEA-SURFACE '1:EMPERATURE DATA FOR 1931 By GILES SLOCUM The data for the Caribbean Sea and the Straits of The change from the high, but not unprecedented tem- Florida for 1931 are here summarized, as a whole, for perature of February, 1931 , to the conspicuously extreme reasons discussed in this issue under the caption, "Sea- anomalous condition in May, took place gradually with- Surface Temperature Observations, January, 1932 .', out remarkable interruptions or accelerations. In the accompanying table the values for the first 11 The spring temperatures of 1931 were so high that months of 1931 are final. Those for December are based midsummer conditions prevailed for half the year instead on about 97 per cent of the data that is expected to be of approximately a fourth to a third, as in the usual available. Corrected values for this month will be given year. The departures from the mean for the months later. after May, 1931, were progressively smaller through the CARIBBEAN SEA summer. While the decrease in magnitude of these de- partures did not reverse or interrupt the usual seasonal The monthly mean temperature of the Caribbean Sea march of progressively warmer months through the was higher than the average throughout 1931. The summer until the warmest month, September, it did means for January, March, April, May, June, July, and conspicuously flatten the curve representing the rnarch August were the highest of record for these months of temperature during the year as compared with that for during the 12 years for which adequate data have been other years. collected and analyzed, and so also were their departures By autumn, the extreme thermal abnormality of the from the 12-year means. The previous greatat positive spring and early summer months of 1931 had somewhat departures, O.S", occurred in September and October, moderated. Since a diminishing positive anomaly per- 1927, and December, 1930. sisted, however, through the fall months, the progression May was the most extreme month in 1931. This of the temperature curve was much like the normal usually is a midspring month, characterized as it pro- seasonal march during these final months of the year. esses by a rapid rise in temperature in the Caribbean Considering the extreme temperature abnormality of Ea, but not by relatively high temperatures in the course the spring of 1931 from still another angle, that of the of the annual seasonal march, and it usually IS nearly relative size of the temperature anomaly in comparison as cool as December, a late autumn month. May, 1931, with the annual range, the May, 1931, anomaly was over had a mean temperature of S2.4', which is 1.8O above the two-fifths of the mean annual change from winter to May mean. Since 1920, no other May or June was as summer, which is only 4.3'. The departures for April, warm, and only one July, which was slightly warmer. June, and July were also conspicuously largr, bring over The average for this month, May, 1931, was indeed higher ti third of the mean annual range. than is usual for August, the month just preceding the normally warmest of the year. No month in the years STRAITS OF FLORIDA 1920 to 1923, inclusive, had a temperature exceeding that In the Straits of Florida, the first four inontlis of 1931 of this May. continued a period, begun in December, 1W0, of relrt- February, September, and October, 1931, were each tively far subnormal temper$ues. Subsequently, the once exceeded in temperature by the same respective abnormal warmth of the Canbbean Sea appears to have months in previous years. November and December of spread into this region. May, June, and November, this year were not greatly warmer than average. 1931, were somewhat cooler than the seasonal average, The surface water of the Caribbean Sea was extremely but July, August, September, October, and December warm throughout the winter of 1930-31, and the spring were each warmer than their 12-year means-the latter rise in temperatme, while more rapid than usual, was, indeed being the warmest December in the period of by reason of the high temperatures which already pre- record. In this respect, the warmth of this month re- vailed, not different in nature from the rise in other years. sembled the extreme positive anomalies found in the

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