the bahama islands 131 



Frequency of Hurricanes. 



A former Director of the observatory at Havana, M. Poey, many years 

 ago gathered statistics in regard to hurricanes in the West Indies and suc- 

 ceeded in collecting evidence of 355 which visited the West Indies from 1493 

 to 1855. An incomplete list of later compilation added twelve more for the 

 years from 1856 to 1877. The storms of this class occurring since 1878 have 

 been fully described and carefully studied by Mr. Garriott in an interesting 

 report ' recently issued by the U. S. Weather Bureau. The reader is referred 

 to this bulletin for a detailed account of the hurricanes occurring within this 

 period and for general information concerning the origin and path of the 

 storms. The charts published in Bulletin H are reproduced in Plates XVIII 

 to XXIV, with the addition of the storms occurring from 1901 to 1903 in- 

 clusive. 



Classifying the 355 hurricanes in M. Poey's list which occurred from 

 1493 to 1855, and those in Mr. Garriott's list of 98, which occurred between 

 1878 and 1900, we have the following distribution by months: 



FREQUENCY OP HURRICANES. 



.Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug-. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Yr. 



Poey (1493-1855) 5 7 11 G 5 10 42 96 80 69 17 7 355 



Garriott (1878-1900). 3 1 3 3 25 25 32 3 3 98 



The above tabulation shows that the storms are almost entirely restricted 

 to the months of August, September and October. The accompanying charts 

 reproduced from Weather Bureau Bulletin H, bring out vividly the sudden 

 increase in the number of these storms during the month of August and their 

 equally rapid cessation in November. The path and daily progress of every 

 storm of consequence occurring since 1878 is sho^vn upon these charts. 



These storms mostly originate, or first appear within our field of view, 

 in the neighborhood of the Windward Islands, move in a direction between 

 west and northwest at the rate of about 10 or 12 miles per hour, and recurve 

 to northward and then to northeastward approximately in the neighborhood 

 of Florida, or within the area of the Bahama group of islands. They are 

 similar in form and structure to the temperate region storms which are so 

 familiar to us, especially in the fall and winter season, but differ from these 

 in being more restricted in tlieir area and more intense in the destructive 



^West Indian Hurricanes, E. B. Garriott, Bull. H., U. S. Weather Bureau, 

 Wash., D. C, 1902. 



