56G Tranmclions. — Mi)icellancous. 



ably thence that the greater part of our cyclones approach us, 

 just as 90 per cent, of those of the British Isles come from the 

 south-west. 



Now, what are these cyclones which are accompanied by 

 low barometer, high wind, and heavy rain ? They are simply 

 eddies and whirlpools — not upright, but inverted and sloping — 

 formed in the broad stream of the equatorial current of air as 

 it passes on to polar regions. And here it will be fitting to 

 make some remarks on what Loomis refers to as the influence 

 of storm-tracks in producing heavy rains. If it be true, as Mr. 

 Eussell, the Meteorologist of New South Wales, says, that 

 nine-tenths of the rain of a country is brought by cyclonic 

 disturbances, it is clearly of the greatest importance to a 

 knowledge of New Zealand weather that we should, if possible, 

 ascertain what are the prevailing paths that cyclonic disturb- 

 ances with us take. 



Dove doubts whether there be such a thing as a polar 

 storm — i.e., a storm coming with its usual accomj^animents of 

 rain and low barometer from higher latitudes to lower. Our 

 experience, however, in Australia and New Zealand seems to 

 show that south-west storms are very frequent : but are these 

 polar storms ? They may be equatorial storms diverted from 

 their course, having first started south-eastwards from sub- 

 tropical starting-places, but subsequently drifted into aerial 

 channels skirting anticyclonic areas, and thus doubled to 

 som.e extent backwards ; or, as already suggested, they ma}' be 

 the result of a contest between the warm north-west and the 

 cold polar wind, which by lowering the temperature of the 

 equatorial wind as it gradually masters it, causes the heavy 

 precipitation wdiich characterizes a good deal of south-west 

 weather. In any case they come to us and the southern 

 points of Australia, apparently, from the south-west. Their 

 centres sometimes pass over these Islands ; and thus places on 

 the east coasts — Dunedin and Wellington, e.g. — will get south- 

 east storms, for the rain, it must be remembered, does not 

 come from the quarter indicated by the path of lowest pres- 

 sure. When the centre passes to tlae north of New Zealand, 

 as Sir James Hector observes, north-east storms of wind and 

 rain will come along the east coast, and hence, probably, the 

 heavy north-east rains of Nelson. 



But cyclones from west and north-west, accompanied by 

 heavy rains from west and south-west, would seem to be much 

 more usual than those from the south-west. Sometimes- 

 storms have been traced from Mauritius to New Zealand, 

 skirting the huge anticyclone that generally rests over Aus- 

 tralia, carrying rain to the southern points of that land, pass- 

 ing over Bass's Straits and Tasmania to New Zealand in 

 twenty-four hours, striking against our Southern Alps with 



