38 



METEOROLOGICAL REPORT. 



FROM THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



The meteorological condition of the northern hemisphere at the end of 

 December, 1863, and the beginning of Januarj', 1864, was one of the most 

 remarkable to be found on record. In most cases in which a cold polar current 

 is flowing southward and reducing the temperature, it is confined to a com- 

 paratively narrow breadth, and at the same time warm equatorial currents 

 are flowing northward over contiguous spaces, and thus restoring the gene- 

 ral equilibrium of temperature and of pressure by opposite and parallel 

 streams. But at the time above mentioned, from the facts thus far collected, 

 it would appear that an unbroken sheet of cold air, extending from Eastern 

 Europe, on the one side, to at least the Sandwich Islands on the other, was 

 flowing southward, and everywhere in this wide-extended space was simul- 

 taneously reducing the temperature to a degree much below its normal 

 monthly mean. 



This phenomenon well deserves a special investigation. The data should 

 be collected by which to determine the limits and character of the polar 

 current as well as the condition of the weather at the time in all other 

 accessible parts of the world. Fortunately, by means of the organized 

 systems of meteorology which have been established in almost every 

 country, this data can be obtained in the course of a few months. 



In continiiation of the notices of the severe cold and extensive snow- 

 storm in the end of December and beginning of January, mentioned in the 

 last report, extracts are given below from registers at many stations, 

 showing the prevalence and extent of the storm. Following these extracts 

 is a table containing the days on which snow and rain fell during the last 

 week in December and first week in January; another table showing on 

 what days in December and January the thermometer was at zero, or lower, 

 and the number of days in both those months on which it was as low or 

 lower than the freezing point ; also another table giving the temperature, 

 and the direction and force of the wind, at the hours of observation on the 

 first day of Januar}' and at 7 a. m. of the second, which at nearly all the 

 stations embraced the lowest temperature. The deepest snow was east of 

 the Mississippi river and north of the Ohio, and the severest cold was in 

 the same region and further west; but the depression of temperature and 

 the atmospheric disturbance extended over the whole country. At Mirador, 

 in Mexico, near Vera Cruz, the mean temperature of the first daj^ of January 

 was nearly five degrees lower than on any other day in the month, except 

 the nineteenth, which was the same as the first; and at St. John, New 

 Brunswick, New Year's Day "was singularly strange, even for a winter 

 day in St. John." The record from Bermuda for the first week in January 

 has not been received. 



WEATHER AT THE END OF 1863 AND BEGINNING OF 1864. 



Saint John's, Neicfoundland. — January 1, fine, cold; light wind. 2d, gale 

 all day. 3d, very fine, but cold; light wind. 



Saint John, Neio Brunsicick. — An inch and a half of snow fell on the 28th 

 of December, three-tenths of an inch on the 29th, an inch and a half on the 



