HISTORICAL FACTS
Galileo discovered the principles of the thermometer in 1592. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, is given credit for perfecting it in 1610. Athanasius Kircher is given credit for the discovery of the mercurial thermometer. This was about 1641. Ferdinand the II, in 1650 or thereabouts, filled a glass tube with colored alcohol and hermetically sealed it after graduating the tube. Fahrenheit is given credit for the discovery that water freezes always at the same temperature. With these facts he devised a scale for thermometers in 1714.
A temperature of 111° below zero has been recorded at an altitude of 48,700 feet in the United States.
The highest record in the United States Weather Bureau was taken in Death Valley, Cal., on June 30, July 1 and 2, 1891, when the thermometer reached 122° F. Death Valley is also given credit for the highest known monthly temperature, which was 102° F. in the month of July. Arctic expeditions have records of 73° and 66° below zero. This is the greatest natural cold recorded. The average temperature in the United States is 52.4°; the average temperature in England is 50°.
In the interior of Australia a record has been taken of a drop of 60° to 70° in a few hours; whereas the most rapid change recorded in the United States was 60° F. in twenty-four hours. This record has been made twice, in 1880 and again in 1890.
The lowest temperature recorded in the United States Weather Bureau was at Poplar River, Mont., January, 1885, when the thermometer registered 63° below zero.
The estimated heat of the sun is 10,000°; the highest artificial heat obtained is 7,000°. Regarding the heat of the sun, no definite conclusions have been arrived at, so the above temperature is only approximate.
Least relative humidity is found in places southwest of Arizona, where the average is about 40°. Fifty degrees humidity means halfas much moisture as is necessary for complete saturation. The average in other parts of the country is from 60° to 80°.
Steel boils at 3500°; water boils at 212°; liquid air submitted to a degree of cold where it ceases to be a gas and becomes a solid is 312° below zero. Professor John Dewar of England is credited with some of the most remarkable experiments with low temperature, and at these temperatures made some wonderful discoveries. He went down so cold that he could freeze liquid air back into a solid; he continued further until he reduced hydrogen, a very light gas, to a liquid. This was at 440° below zero. One of the most remarkable things he did was to freeze hydrogen into a solid.
Water boils at 183.2° Fahrenheit on top of Mt. Blanc; water boils at 194° Fahrenheit on top of Mt. Quito.
Torricelli is given credit for the discovery of the principles of the barometer. Otto Von Guericke, of Magdeburg, to whom we are indebted for the air pump, is credited as being the first person to use the barometer as a weather indicator.
Because of the fact that the mercurial barometer is not adaptable for portability, many scientists began work on producing a barometer without fluid that could be easily carried about and would give accurate results. In 1798 M. Comte, professor of aerostatics in the school at Meudon near Paris, invented the aneroid barometer, which he used in his balloon ascents. This instrument has been described fully on page55.
Lowest reading taken in the United States by the United States Weather Bureau was 28.48, or practically three quarters of a pound per square inch below normal. Altitude records have been taken with the barometer as high as 85,270 feet. This record was made at Uccle Observatory, Belgium, the pressure being 0.67° at this point.
Hail varies from one-tenth inch to more than five inches in diameter.
The following is an extract from the “Memoirs of BenvenutoCellini” of a terrible hail storm in Lyons, France, in 1544: “The hail at length rose to the size of lemons. At about half a mile’s distance all the trees were broken down, and all the cattle were deprived of life; we likewise found a great many shepherds killed, and we saw hailstones which a man would have found it a difficult matter to have grasped in both hands.”
New Hampshire has the record for the largest hailstones seen here so far; they were 4 inches in diameter and weighed 18 ounces, and were 12½ inches in circumferences.
There are records in Japan of where rain has reached 30 inches in twenty-four hours; in India where it has reached 40 inches in twenty-four hours.
The average rainfall in the United States is 35 inches.
There are certain places in India where the yearly rainfall averages over 470 inches; whereas other regions of India show less than 4 inches.
The higher the clouds are in the air, the larger the drops of rain when they reach the earth.
The heaviest annual rainfall recorded any place in the world is on the Khasi Hills in Bengal, where it registered 600 inches. The major part of this was in half of the year.
The greatest amount of rainfall is in the northwestern part of the United States; the least amount is in Arizona, the southwestern part. In some parts of Egypt and Arabia, the only moisture that is received there is in the form of dew.
The average cloudiness of the earth has been estimated between 50 and 55 per cent. This amount slightly exceeds the cloud conditions of the United States.
Unalaska has a record of extreme cloudiness for one whole month, February, 1880.
Sir J. C. Ross, an Arctic explorer, recorded a shower of nearly an hour’s duration on Christmas day, 1839, without a cloud in sight.
A similar record was made on June 30, 1877, at Vevay, Ind., where a shower lasted for five minutes in a cloudless sky.
A fall of yellow snow was recorded at South Bethlehem, Pa., in 1889. Examination showed this coloration to be due to thepollen of the pine trees which had been blown into the atmosphere before the fall.
Another record of yellow rainfall was recorded at Lynchburg on March 21, 1879.
Golden snow was recorded at Peckoloh, Germany, in 1877.
Green and red snows have been observed during Arctic explorations, due to a minute organism that was in the atmosphere.
When the temperature of the atmosphere is nearly 32° during a snow storm and the wind is blowing, the flakes being damp and the snowfall heavy, the flakes are apt to unite to form large masses of snow in the atmosphere or air, which accounts for some of the following records:
At Chapston, Wales, in January, 1888, the snowflakes measured 3.6 inches in length and 1.4 inches in breadth, and 1.3 inches in thickness. They amounted to 2½ cubic inches of water when melted.
There are some remarkable instances of where hailstones have cemented together, making large masses of ice. Some remarkable records of this kind have been recorded in India.
In Morganstown, Va., on April 28, 1877, hailstones 2 inches long and 1½ inches in diameter fell.
The mean yearly pressure of the United States ranges between 30 and 30.1 inches when reduced by ordinary methods to sea level.
In Unalaska, January 21, 1879, the barometer reading of 27.70 inches was recorded, and another low reading was made at Stykkisholm of 27.91 inches on February 1, 1877. On September 27, 1880, a ship on the China Sea experienced a terrific typhoon, during which the barometer went down in four hours from 29.64 to 27.04 inches.
The greatest temperature ranges recorded are in the interior of Siberia, where at Yakutsk they recorded a range of 181.4°.
The most remarkable changes recorded within twenty-four hours have been at Fort Maginnis, Mont., January 6, 1886, a fall of 56.40°; at Helena, Mont., January 6, 1886, a fall of 55° in sixteen hours; at Florence, Ariz., June 26, 1881, 65° rise. On the northern edge of the African desert the temperature of the air rose to 127.4°.
The lowest single temperature in the world was recorded at Werchojansk, Siberia, in January, 1885, when it was 90.4° belowzero, while the average temperature for the month at the same place was 63.9° below zero.
Highest mean rainfall occurs in Sumatra, averaging about 130 inches; the rainfall of 493.2 inches per year occurs at Cherapunji, Assam, India, which is the largest in the world.
The lowest rainfall in the world occurs at Southeast California, West Arizona, and the valley of lower Colorado, where the rainfall averages less than 3 inches.
The most remarkable rainfall recorded in the United States for twenty-four hours occurred at Alexandria, La., June 15, 1886, when the rainfall reached the enormous amount of 21.4 inches. The most remarkable rainfall recorded in the world occurred at Purneah, Bengal, September 13, 1879, when the rainfall reached the unprecedented amount of 35 inches in twenty-four hours.
On August 17, 1876, at Fort Sully, Dakota, occurred one of the heaviest cloudbursts ever known. The water moved out of the canyon on the opposite side of the Missouri in a solid bank three feet deep and 200 feet wide. There are many other remarkable cloudbursts recorded doing great injury, drowning and killing many people.
Among the most remarkable wind velocity records is that of Cape Lookout on October 17, 1879, when the wind blew at a rate of 138 miles an hour.
One of the worst cyclones ever recorded in North America was the flood, as it is usually termed, at Galveston, Tex. This storm began on the 1st day of September, 1900, and lasted until the 12th. It reached its maximum destructive force on the 8th. Six thousand lives were lost and $30,000,000 worth of property was destroyed.
Even worse than any of these was the one at Calcutta in 1864, followed by a storm wave over 16 feet high, causing a death-rate of 45,000 persons.
The blizzard in Dakota of 1873 is one of the worst on record, but probably the most disastrous in the United States occurred in Montana, Dakota, and Texas on January 11, 1888. The loss of life exceeded 100 persons.
TORNADOES
The United States is more liable to tornadoes than any other part of the globe. In the United States over 3,000 people have been killed by tornadoes and thousands more have been injured. The greatest loss of lives recorded by tornadoes was at Adams City, Miss., on June 16, 1842, when 500 lives were lost.
The most remarkable hail storm was that of July 13, 1788, through France to Belgium, and did a property damage of over five million dollars.
There have been many destructive hailstorms in the United States. One on July 6, 1878, at central New York extended into parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Stones fell recorded to measure 7 inches in diameter.
Benjamin Franklin has been given credit for the discovery that storms have a rotary motion, and that they move from west to east. This discovery was made in 1747.
Franklin did not positively prove these facts, and it remained for Redfield, Espy, Maury, Abbe to substantiate the truth of this statement.
The first United States Weather Bureau was established in 1870. General Albert J. Myer was the first chief of the United States Weather Bureau.
It is estimated that we are 250,000 miles from the moon.
At high altitudes, the cover of a kettle must be weighted down in order to boil an egg hard. This is to enable the pressure of steam to allow temperature high enough for boiling. In other words, it would be impossible to boil an egg in an open vessel at a high altitude.