32 Letter from Mr. George Corden. 
5.—Copry oF A LETTER FROM MR. GEORGE CORDEN TO THE “‘ CROYDON 
ADVERTISER” AS TO THE STORM AT CROYDON ON SuNDAY, 
JUNE 23RD, 1878. 
[Read February 26th, 1879.| 
S1r,—As the thunder storm of Sunday last, June 23rd, was of 
such an extraordinary nature, and of such unprecedented violence 
in this town, I venture to give your readers a few of the results of 
my observations during its progress. 
In the first place, it appeared to me to be a succession of storms, 
four in number, three of which broke immediately over this town, 
and the fourth raged furiously to the S.E. of this place from 3.45 to 
4-30 p.m 
The clouds appeared to me to come up, in each of the three first 
instances, from the W.S.W., and pass over to the E.N.E., and in the 
case of the fourth to travel from N.E. to S.E. without passing over here. 
The lower stratum of air, directly after the first storm commenced, 
changed suddenly from S.W. to N., then N.E., and at the period of 
the fourth storm to S.E., eventually passing to South later on. 
The barometer scarcely indicated that any change was in progress ; 
at Io a.m. it stood at 30.16; just before the storm commenced it fell 
to 30.14; it again rose to 30.16 as the storm progressed, and fell 
again to 30.14 after it was over; it then fell to 30.13 by night, and 
the next day it gradually rose. 
The temperature of the air in the shade (thermometer on a board 
with its back to a wall facing north,) was 81° at 12 o’clock a.m.; it 
then fell two or three degrees before the storm commenced, and at 
4.45, after all was over, it had fallen to 65°, or a difference of 16°; it 
then rose to 68°, where it remained most part of the evening. 
The first part of the storm raged from 1.30 to 2 p.m. during which 
time, though the lightning was more vivid and the claps of thunder 
more deafening perhaps than at any other time during the storm, 
the rainfall only amounted to 0.15 of aninch.’ A lull here occurred 
giving me an opportunity to empty the gauge. 
At 2.5 the storm re-commenced, and at 2.20 a lull enabled me to 
measure again, this time 0°31 of an inch in 15 minutes. 
At 2.20 hail stones commenced falling, and as I thought at the 
time, of an unusual size (§ an inch in diameter), and of peculiar 
shapes. I took the opportunity to roughly sketch the most striking 
forms, and there were some pear shaped, some bowl shaped, and some 
formed like stars. The rainfall for this part of the storm was 
measured at 2.35, and represented 0°41 of an inch in 15 minutes. 
From 2.35 to 2.50 only o'06 of an inch (rain and hail) was 
measured, and no rain fell from 2.50 to 3.5; but at 3.5 commenced the 
most extraordinary feature in the whole storm, in the shape of a fall 
of hail stones r-inch in diameter; the noise they made in falling 
resembling the sound of workmen hammering on the roof. 
These stones fell widely apart, I should say a foot, and very few, 
if any, entered the rain gauges, and as they bounced up two or three 
feet when they reached the ground they looked very much like 
dancing eggs. I sketched one of the most perfect of them, and it 
was somewhat of a white granular appearance, like frozen snow, 
and a small portion clear ice. 
The fall of 1-inch hailstones soon gave place to a perfect deluge 
