SOLAR ENERGY measurements with the SOLAR 118 • Only $995. including silicon cell sensor and electronic integrator. • Measures and displays solar energy (KWh/m2) and solar (\ l' intensity (W/m2) OUR • LCD display for easy outdoor reading APOLOGIES • 2% accuracy • 6 month operation on one set of batteries due to ultra to Enercorp for the printing error low power electronics which defaced their ad vertise­ .. • Special safety feature protects against accidental reset ment on page 14 of the Fall 1979 ­ Issue. CALL OR WRITE FOR MORE INFORMATION : ~~~l?C()l? ' V in~.rum(?n.~ ltd P.o. Box 20, Stn. U., Toronto, Onto M8Z 5M4 (416) 231-5335 Meteorological instruments and systems for sun. wind. precipitation • temperature. humidity. barometric pressure. complete weather stations. A Complete Meteorological THE SAGER Consulting Service WEATHERCASTER with offices in Toronto, Calgary and Montreal A weather fore· casting in stru· Real time forecasting on all scales ment you can use to predict the for all areas of North America weather for the • Micro and Meso Meteorological Studies next 12 to 24­ • Climatology hou r period in an • Air Pollution Meteorology exact location. • Agro Meteorology Used in conccrt with a bar· • Instrumentation omeler, the Wcathercasler For additi onal informati on contact computes five thousand var· Meteorological and Environmental Consultants Ltd. iablcs of input 850 Magne ti c Drive Downsview Ontario M3 J 2C4 dala before a.:;;;==.===-=-...I Phone (4 16 ) 661 ­ 5960 Telex 06965790 indicating the forecast. Predicts wind force and direction, precipitJtion, cloud conditions and temperature-­ ail within a 30-mile radius. A book­ like instrument with four dials and a Please enter my subscription to CHINOOK key figure indicator. for 0 one year ( 4 issues) $ 6.00 $10.50 (U.S. Funds) postpaid. o two years ( 8 issues) $11.00 Also includes our o three years (12 issues) $16.00 lalest catalog featuring over 100 Name____________________________________________________ weather·related products. please print Catalog only: 50¢. Address__________________________________________________ ______________________________________ Enclosed is $,_____ Postal Code \\eatherwise books & instruments Mail to CHINOOK, P.O.Box 427, Brampton, Ont. L6V 2L4 Department C8 This is a 0 NEW order; a 0 subscription RENEWAL Main Street Rates outside Canada and U.S. 1 yr. $7.50; 2 yrs. $14.00; 3 yrs. $20.50 New London, NH 03257 L---_______________________________~ Winter 1980 Volume 2 Number 2 Articles 25 SEVERE THUNDERSTORM, 592 B.C. by A.F Davies 28 AN "EDMONTON CHINOOK" by Keith D. Hage ONTARIO TORNADO Departments MAKES NEWS IN HOLLAND A friend of mine , who writes weather 19 TO THE EDITOR reports in more than ten newspapers and/or weekly distributed magazines here 20 SEVERE STORM LOG in Holland, has written an article about 1979 Almanac Edition Chinook in Troulv. Last September he also wrote about the Woodstock tornado 22 THE WEATHER AMATEUR disaster and received many responses from Snow Crystals people who were on holiday in Ontario conducted by Donald Netolitzky during the summer, as well as from people who have relatives in Canada. 26 BOOK REVIEW Weather is my hobby and as a volunteer by John L. Knox for our Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute I also take regular weather 27 WINDOW ON WEATHER observations every day. The instruments I by Oscar Koren use are: (a) an official aneroid barometer, (b) barograph, (c) hand anemometer, (d) a 30 TRADE WINDS ventilated screen equipped with a thermo­ edited by Claude Labine graph, dry and wet bulb thermometers, maximum and minimum thermometers,(e) Editor Michael J. :-.; cwark a rain guage, (I) a heated pluviograph for Publisher Weather Enterprises, PO Box 427, Brampto n, Onlario. L6V 2L4 recording rainfall amount and duration, Associate Editor Claude Labine. (g) six soil thermometers for measuring Historical Research Peler Elms, Madeli ne Elms temperatures at 5, 10,20, 30,50 and 100 cm ISSN 0705-4572 below the surface, and finally, because Marken is a small peninSUla in Lake Yssel, I have a sea-water thermometer. Jan Visser Pr inted and produced in Canada and published quarterly by Weatner Enterprises. Copyright i by Weather Enterprises. Registered in Ottawa as second class mail. registration number 4508 . Subscription rates in Canada and Marken, The Netherlands U.S.A. for one year $6.00. for Iwo years $11.00. and for Ihree years $16.00. All olher counlries the rales are $7 .50. (Mr. Visser belongs to a group o/weather $14 .00. and 520.50 respeeli ve ly. amateurs who publish a journal called Weerspiegal.lt is in Dutch but some articles are summarized in English. Write to: Wim Brinksma, seaetaris, Strausslaan 436, 2551 NK Den Haag, Holland. Ld) THE COVER A layer of clear ice 2.5 cm thick coats a wire fence. This product of heavy freezing ra in, somet i mes called a "sil ver tha w", is bea u tif ul in the abstract bu t a nigh tmare in reality as it glazes roads, sidewalks, steps, wires and trees with a treacherous surface. The weight of ice on tree limbs is sufficient to break large branches, particularly when whipped by the wind, which fall causing secondary damage to whatever is below. Electric transmission wires, aerial telephone cables etc., are prone to "gallop" or resonate in harmony with the wind. The centre of the wire span rebounds up and down under its load of ice until eitherthe wire snaps or the support pol es are pulled down. Ice storms a re a relatively common winter phenomena in eastern Canada and cause major disruptions to power supply, communication, travel and commerce. Here is a picture of the total solar eclipse at Photo courtesy of A.E.S. Winnipeg, Manitoba on February 26, [979. Wm. Brand Toronto, Ontario 19 SEVERE STORM LOG 1979 ALMANAC EDmON Hurricanes In Ontario, as the storm centre passed to accompanied it certainly did, and was the south o n Thursday September 6th., a responsible for the death of an IS year old Of the S storms of tropical origin tornado was reported in the vicinity of Quebec City man who was swept away by during the 1979 hurricane season, only one Athens which levelled a farm silo, unroofed the flooded Duberger River when its - David - crossed Canadian territory farm buildings and uprooted trees. soaked and softened bank crumbled (figure I). Beginning as a tropical depres­ On the heels of David ca me Frederic. The benea th his feet. A swath from Weiland sion in 2000 km east of the Windward path of this hurricane was further to the and Fort Erie in the Niagara Peninsula, to Islands on Sunday August 26th., it had west, through the Gulf of Mexico, and as it Point Petre in Prince Edward County, to matured into a major hurricane by the approached Mobile, Alabama it was rated Kingsto n, Brockville, Morrisburg and following morning. Rampaging thro ugh as a catego ry 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Cornwall along the upper St. Lawrence the Caribbean islands of Dominica, Puerto Scale (where the top category of 5 repre­ Valley, was drenched by morethan 100mm Rico and the Dominican Republic it was sents a storm causing catastrophic dam­ of rain. At Point Petre, 121mm was responsible for a total of more than 600 age). Considering it s force, the U.S. death measured; at Kingston, 129mm; while deaths, and left the majori ty of the people toll of 9 people was amazingly sma ll. Cornwall received 130.4mm, most ofwhich of the Dominican Republic homeless. Hurricane Camille in 1969 for example, fell in a 14 hour period on Friday, Septem­ Another 10 people perished as it swept caused the death of hundreds. The reason ber 14th. Re cord one-day rainfalls were northwards through the Atlantic coast for the difference was the speed y and safe also reported at Montreal, P.Q., (SI.9mm) states of the U.S. producing tornadoes, evacuation of half-a-million people from and at Quebec City (Sl.2mm). heavy rains, flooding and powcr blackouts. the coastal areas of Florida, Alabama and With much of the water running off into Shortly after making landfall near Savan­ Louisiana. Frederic's strength waned La ke Erie and Lake Ontario, the Canada nah, Georgia, it weakened to a tropical rapidly once reaching land early Thursday Centre for Inland Waters measured a storm (sustained winds less than li S morning, September 13th. Its track was short-term rise of about Scm in the mean km/h). By late Thursday, September 6th .. across Tennessee, where it dwindled to an level of both lakes. as Tropical Storm David, it had reached extra-tropical storm, to its la st identifiable Throughout the area of the heaviest Fredericton, N.B., at which point it began position in New York state on September rainfall, storm drains culverts and sewers accelerating and rapidly crossed th e Gulf 14th. were overwhelmed. In some places the of St. Lawrence. Maximum wind gusts in Although Frederic's track did not enter water gushed through manholes flooding excess of 100 km/h were reported at Canada, the very heavy rain which streets and house basements. In Morris- Grindstone Island as the storm burg, Ontario. where the older passed. By ea rly Friday afternoon, THE TRACKS OF DAVID (during the period September I to 7) AND storm and sanitary sewers share September 7th., as an extra­ niEDERIC(during the period September 4 to 14). Their lo eation isshown the same conduit and are separated tropical depression, it had crossed at 0700 _DT each day. A and B indica te the hurrican es' positions in the only by a one metre wall, the storm photograph, on the o pposite page. the Great Northern Peninsula of drain overflowed into the sanitary Newfoundland to perish at sea in o - -- 0 Tropical storm stage 0+ -l ++ 0 Extratropical stage sewer forcing raw sewage back 0 _ _ _ 0 Hurricane stage o X X X X 0 Depression through the basement drains in a the North Atlantic shortly after.