XVII. 



REPORT ON THE RAINFALL IN HERTFORDSHIRE IN THE 



YEAR 189G. 



By John HoPKixsoN, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.R.Mct. Soc, Assoc. Inst. C.E. 

 Read at Watford, 23rd March, 1897. 



For several years the number of our rainfall stations has been 

 40. This number is now increased to 44. One station, Brocket 

 Hall, disappears fi'om our list, owing to Lord Mount Stephen's 

 gardener who took the observations having left, and none of his 

 other gardeners having been instructed to continue them. On 

 the other hand, there are five stations added to the list — Bulbourne, 

 near Tring; Offside Cottage, Cowroast ; Laurel Bank, King's 

 Langley ; Bone Hill, St. Albans ; and Aldenham House, Elstree, 

 on the Upper Colnc. Hitherto one station, Odsey, has been outside 

 the county boundary, in Cambridgeshire, but almost surrounded 

 by Hertfordshire ; now there are two similarly circumstanced, 

 Bulbourne being just over our border in Buckiaghamshire, at the 

 extremity of a spur of that county which projects into Hertford- 

 shire. This latter station is on the water-parting between the 

 river basins of the Thame and the Bulbourne, but the ground on 

 the Bulbourne side seems to rise a little higher than that in the 

 direction of the Thame, and therefore it is placed in that district, 

 notwithstanding its name. 



The number of daily records which has been received is 35, 

 which is two more than for the previous year, but the same number 

 as that for the year 1894. 



Particulars of the 44 rainfall stations, and the monthly and 

 total rainfall and number of days in the year 1896 on which at 

 least O'Ol inch of rain fell, or, when the measurement is taken 

 to thousandths of an inch, 0"00.'i inch, are given in Tables 

 I and II, pp. 141-143. 



The mean rainfall in the county in the year 1896 was 26-70 

 inches. This is 0-04 inch below the average for the decade 

 1880-89, and 0-27 inch above that for the haK-century 1840-89. 

 The year was, therefore, one of about average rainfall. The mean 

 number of wet days in the year was exactly the average for the 

 twenty years 1870-89. 



In the distribution of the rainfall between the two halves of 

 the year there is not much difference between 1895 and 1896. 

 In the fonner year 27^ per cent, of the year's rain fell in the first 

 six months, and 72 J per cent, in the last six months; in 1896 

 the fall in the first half of the year was 7*9 1 inches, or 30 per 

 cent, of the whole, and the fall in the second half was 18'79 inches, 

 or 70 per cent, of the whole year's fall. The autumn was much 

 the wettest season, having II "14 inches of rain, or 42 per cent, 

 of the year's fall in one quarter of the year. September was an 

 excessively wet month. 



