202 Lieut.-Col. Sabine on the Winter Storms 



the phenomena of the storm are swept onwards, and trans- 

 ferred successively from the middle to the eastern states, and 

 thence to the sea, with a velocity which in different instances 

 has been noted to vary from about twenty to thirty-six statute 

 miles an hour. The maximum of the thermometer and mini- 

 mum of the barometer coincide generally (and with great 

 exactness in the eastern states) with the change of the wind, 

 the derangement of the temperature being so great as 20° and 

 even occasionally 30° above its normal state. 



The description thus given was written after reading the 

 second memoir, and was consequently drawn principally from 

 the phaenomena of the two storms of 1842, with only a ge- 

 neral recollection of the similarity of the circumstances of 

 the storm of December 1836, described in Mr. Loomis's pre- 

 vious memoir, which I had not looked into for some months. 

 On its reperusal since, I find a condensed view of the facts of 

 that storm at once so graphical, and by its accordance with 

 the description drawn from the two other storms exemplifying 

 so well their common character, that I am induced to insert it. 



" The principal characteristics were as follows : — After a 

 cold and clear interval with barometer high, the wind com- 

 menced blowing from the south. The barometer fell rapidly, 

 the thermometer rose, rain descended in abundance. The 

 wind veered suddenly to the north-west, and blew with great 

 violence : the rain is succeeded by hail or snow, which con- 

 tinues but a short time; the barometer rises rapidly; the 

 thermometer sinks as rapidly. These changes are not expe- 

 rienced everywhere simultaneously, but progressively from 

 west to east." 



Such then are the phaenomena, and such the order of their 

 occurrence, in a class of storms which in the winter season, 

 and in the localities referred to, are of frequent occurrence ; 

 that which has been described as the normal state of the at- 

 mosphere, and that which has been described as the interrup- 

 tion to it, appearing to follow each other in repeated succes- 

 sion. The facts being thus before us, it is for meteorologists 

 to consider of their explanation. 



When it is remembered that the temperature of the sur- 

 face water of the Gulf of Mexico which washes the southern 

 shores of the United States is considerably higher than the 

 ordinary temperature of the surface water of the ocean in the 

 same parallel ; and that the gulf-stream which coasts the 

 south-eastern states conveys heated water into parallels where 

 its relative difference from the ordinary ocean-temperature is 

 even greater than in the Gulf of Mexico, we should be pre- 

 pared to expect that the abnormal southerly and south- 



