B6 



AUSTRALIAN WEATHER. 



features being the bend in the high pressure isobars, and the 

 dormant low pressure off the coast of Queensland. 



At 9 a.m. on this day there was nothing in the local weather 

 conditions which would lead one to anticipate the gale that 

 eventuated, the winds being generally light, and at Sydney only 

 a light breeze was blowing from the South-south-west ; but at 3 

 p.m. an unusual fall took place in the barometers to the north-east 

 of New South Wales, and the winds there were freshening gener- 

 ally. On preparing a chart at this hour we found the depression 

 was intensifying and had a cyclonic tendency ; at 6 p.m. in 

 Sydney the wind, which had been blowing from the south-east 

 and gradually increasing in velocity, reached the force of a gale, 

 a thick driving rain began to fall, which continued with little inter- 

 mission until daybreak next day, when over 2" were registered, 

 and an extensive area around the metropolis benefitted to the 

 extent of an inch and upwards ; the barometer at this hour also 

 began to fall rapidly and steadily, until at 5 a.m. on the 24th it 

 read 29 '203, and the wind had reached in one squall, lasting only 

 a few seconds, the extraordinary rate of one hundred and twenty 

 miles per hour, the mean rate of the gale being thirty-two miles 

 per hour. 



TYPES 



AUSTRALIAN WEATHER 



