160 



THE CLIMATE OF ST. MARY S COUNTY 



Excessive precipitation (10.00 inches or more in one month) does 

 not occur frequently in St. Mary's County. Omitting the doubtful 

 record of 1872 for St. Inigoes, it appears that the following large amounts 

 have been recorded: Leonardtown, 10.32 inches, July, 1891; St. Mary's 

 City, 10.87 inches, in March, 1867, and 14.98 inches in August, 1861; 

 St. Inigoes, 15.15 inches in August, 1873, 12.95 inches in April, 1874, 

 and 11.01 inches in August, 1875. At all stations amounts less than 1.00 

 inch frequently occur. The lowest record for each station is : Charlotte 



TABLE XIII. 

 Precipitation at St. Inigoes, Md., 1871-1879. 



Hall, 0.10 inch, February, 1901; Cherryfields, 0.58 inch, in September, 

 1897; Leonardtown, 0.05 inch, in December, 1889; St. Mary's, 0.27 inch, 

 in August, 1863, and St. Inigoes, 0.25 inch, in October, 1874. The 

 difference between the spring and summer rains is not very great, and 

 autumn and winter are likewise very close. 



The figures given in the precipitation tables show that while insufficient 

 rainfall for the requirement of crops is likely to occur during almost any 

 month of the growing season, an entire failure of crops on account of 

 drought is impossible; at no station are two months in succession found 

 with less than one inch of rainfall, and usually the amount is abundant 

 at all seasons of the year. The summer months are likely at all times 

 to show a greater variability in amount than the winter months, because 

 the rainfall of summer is usually in the form of local showers or thunder- 



