New York Weather Bureau. 425 



variation in the climate of the State; namely, the ocean, the Great 

 Lakes, and certain prominent irregularities of the land surface 

 which modify the direction and force of the prevailing winds. 



Thermal Influence of the Ocean. 



Atlantic Coast Region. — Owing to the general eastward drift 

 of the atmosphere throughout the year, the effect of the 

 ocean upon the temperature of the Atlantic States is^ 

 under normal conditions, derived almost entirely from a 

 restricted iportion of the water surface contiguous to the 

 coast. The air flowing toward low area storms over the 

 land may, however, occasionally be drawn from the region^ of the 

 Gulf Stream, whose warmest axis is about 300 miles from the 

 coast of this iState. The stream at this point has a total width of 

 300 miles (the width at the surface is considerably less) ; a mean 

 temperature for the year of over 73 degrees; amd summer and 

 winter temperatures of laibout 80 degrees and 70 degrees "respec- 

 tively, in the latitude of New York. Notwithstanding the fact 

 that icold or polar currents exist on the landward side of the 

 stream, it is stated by Captain J. E. Pillsbury, U. S. N., that " if 

 the prevailing winds in New England in winter were southeast 

 instead of northwest, the climate would be equal to that of the 

 Azores Islands, mild and balmy. The current is in its place, 

 ready to give off heat and moisture to the air, but the erratic 

 movement of the winds may deliver this heat and moiisturei at un- 

 expected times and seasons, and thus give rise tlo' the erroneoius 

 belief that the Gulf Stream itself has gone astray." The writer 

 ihas met with no investigations of the meteorological side of the 

 question', and only the general statement can be made, that, with 

 a special distr-ibution of pressure, extensive easterly wind systems 

 may bring from the Gulf Stream to the coast quantities of heat 

 sufficient to modify our climate considerably during very brief 

 periods. 



The temperatures of portions of the sea surface near the coast 

 line are shown approximately by the following averages of ob- 



