64 AUSTRALIAN WEATHER. 



Ordinary symbols have been used, except the circle half filled 

 for thunderstorms, and the straight line shading ; parallel lines 

 indicate the area of rainfall under one inch, crossed shading over 

 one inch. 



TYPE I. MOVING ANTICYCLONES. 



One of the best marked features of Australian weather is the 

 steady easterly progression of all the types, and the governing 

 type, that in fact about which all the other types seem to congre- 

 gate, is the anticyclone ; it has therefore been placed first in the 

 series, with three charts to show the progress made by a quick 

 moving one in forty-eight hours. The average daily progress of 

 anticyclones is four hundred miles per day, but the speed at times 

 rises to one thousand miles. 1 



Investigation so far leaves no room to doubt that in these lati- 

 tudes a series of anticyclones surround the globe ; the latitude of 

 the average one varies with the season, being farther south in 

 summer than in winter. The normal circulation about an anti- 

 cyclone brings southerly winds in front of them, and northerly 

 winds in the rear, hence our cold and our hot winds. 



Chart No. 1 shows the position, on 15th August, 1893, of the 

 eastern half of an incoming anticyclone; it rests over Western 

 Australia, while the departing one is seen over the Tasman Sea; 

 between these is seen the usual \ depression, which is of average 

 intensity, and a dormant tropical low pressure to the north. In 

 Chart No. 2 the anticyclone has moved nearly nine hundred miles 

 in the twenty-four hours, the centre being located near Fowler's 

 Bay, north of the Australian Bight ; the antarctic \ depression 

 is well across the Tasman Sea, while the tropical or monsoonal 

 isobar depicted in the previous chart has apparently merged into 

 the high pressure system, a curious and not unusual kink being 

 formed to the north-east of it, following the contour of the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria. On Chart No. 3 the anticyclone is shown to 

 have moved a further seven hundred and fifty miles, or a total of 



1 Russell Quarterly Journal R. M. S., Vol. xix.. No. 85. 



