yutie 12, 1879] 



NATURE 



151 



THE COLD WEATHER OF LAST WINTER 

 AND SPRING 



THE winter and spring just past will be historically 

 memorable for the unprecedentedly cold weather 

 which has been the outstanding characteristic. More 

 intense cold has no doubt been experienced in former 

 years for single nights, or for brief intervals of a few days, 

 than has been recorded anywhere in these islands during 

 the past six months ; but for upwards of a century since 

 thermometric observations of the temperature of the air 

 began to be made in Great Britain there has not occurred, 

 so far as these observations show, a tract of weather so 

 cold, as respects duration and intensity combined, as has 

 prevailed during the half year ending with May. 



From January, 1764, we have a consecutive series of 

 monthly mean temperatures before us from observations 

 made on the south shores of the Moray Firth and of the 

 Firth of Forth. From this unique and valuable record 

 we give the following periods of protracted low tempera- 

 tures extending over intervals of from five to ten months, 

 which have occurred in North Britain during the past 115 

 years, the amount of the depression below the means of 

 Che months being at least three degrees : — • 



Date of Cold. 



February-November, 17S2 

 January- August, 1799 

 October-March, 1 799-1800 

 Novemlier-April, 1807-8 ... 



March-August, 18 12 



October-March, 1813-14 ... 

 November-August, 1815-16 



January-May, 1838 



January-May, 1855 



December- April, 1859-60... 



Of these periods the most intense and, excepting that 

 of 1815-16, the most protracted cold was that of 1782, 

 when, during the ten months beginning with February, 

 the temperature was 5''! under the mean of these months, 

 the deficiency being 5°'4 for the five months from Febru- 

 ary to June, and 4°-8 from July to November. It may be 

 noted that of these ten periods of protracted cold weather 

 none occurred from 1764 to 1781 ; there were no fewer 

 than seven during the next thirty-four years, and during 

 the sixty-three years which have elapsed since 181 6, only 

 three such cold periods have been recorded. 



Happily the extraordinary development and extension 

 of meteorological observation which has taken place in 

 late years enables us to define with some precision the 

 distribution of the great cold of 1878-79 over the British 

 Isles. For this purpose we have selected ninety-two 

 places well distributed over the United Kingdom, and 

 calculated their mean temperatures for the six months 

 from December to May, and compared them with 

 Buchan's mean temperatures and isothermals of the 

 British Isles. 



From the results thus obtained, it appears that this 

 cold weather was felt in its greatest intensity in Central 

 Enlgand, where, within a circuit roughly defined by a line 

 passing near Stonyhurst, Shrewsbury, Cirencester, Ox- 

 ford, Audley End, Yarmouth, Kelstern in Lincolnshire, 

 and Durham, the depression of the temperature below 

 the means of the six months exceeded 6"o, falling to 6''7 

 below the average at Cirencester and 7°'4 at Shrewsbury. 

 Large portions of the south of Scotland between the 

 Solway and the Firth of Forth and in Perthshire had 

 also a mean temperature for the period fully 6°o under the 

 average. Northwards through Central Scotland as far as 

 Lairg in Sutherland, the depression of temperature was 

 only about 5°'o below the average ; and this appears to 

 have been about the deficiency experienced over central 

 Ireland, falling, however, to s°7 at Armagh, and 5°-3 at 



Lissan, on the west of Loch Neagh. Everywhere round 

 the coast the cold was less intense than in the interior. 

 Temperatures were from a degree to a degree and a half 

 relatively milder along the east coast, and still milder on 

 the west coast ; indeed, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, 

 the south of Ireland, Scilly, and the Channel Isles had a 

 mean temperature only from 2°'o to 3°*o below the 

 average temperature of the period, so greatly was the 

 conserving influence of the ocean felt on the temperature 

 of places in the west and south during this memorable 

 cold weather. 



During these six months, the greatest depression of 

 temperature, absolutely as well as relatively to the 

 monthly means, took place in December and January. 

 If the monthly means be only looked at, the absolutely 

 greatest temperature depression during the period was in 

 December, in the counties of Cumberland and Dumfries, 

 and along the upper reaches of the Tweed and Clyde, 

 with their affluents. Within this region the mean tempe- 

 rature of December, reduced to sea-level, did not rise 

 above 29°-o, falling at some places as low even as 27°'S. 

 The week of intensest cold was the second week of 

 December, when the mean temperature fell at many 

 places in England, Scotland, and Ireland, to from is°'o to 

 iS^'o below the average of the season. 



If we look at the monthly mean temperatures of the 

 past 115 years as compared with their averages, with the 

 view of ascertaining the duration of the most protracted 

 periods of cold weather which have occurred during this 

 long interval of years, defining as a period of cold 

 weather an intei-val of time during which the mean tem- 

 peratures of the months were continuously under their 

 averages, we find that there have occurred four such note- 

 worthy periods of protracted cold weather, during which 

 the mean temperature of no month included in it rose 

 above its average. These, arranged in the order of their 

 duration, are (i) A period of 19 months, extending from 

 September, 1798, to March, 1800, the mean temperature 

 of this long period being 2°'8 below the average ; (2) A 

 period of 17 months from September, 1859, to January, 

 1 861, which was 2°'2 below the average ; (3) A period of 

 15 months, from October, 1815, to December, 1816, which 

 was 3°'o below the average ; and (4) A period of 14 

 months, from February, 1782, to March, 1783, the mean 

 temperature of which fell 4°'4 below the average of the 

 months. It is thus only too evident that while the cold 

 weather most of us have been suffering from these six 

 months exceeds in intensity any other past period^of cold 

 weather in these islands of like duration of which we have 

 an exact and authentic record, the temperature observa- 

 tions of the past 115 years disclose to us tracts of unsea- 

 sonably cold weather, two or even three times more pro- 

 tracted than the interval which has yet elapsed since the 

 present cold set in with such intensity and persistence in 

 November last. 



THE ICE CAVERN OF DOBSCHAm 



WHILE on a tour in Hungary last summer I had the 

 opportunity of visiting an ice cavern near the town 

 of Dobschau ; the discoverer of the cavern kindly con- 

 ducted me through it and wished me to make it known 

 to the English public ; with this object in view I have 

 written the following short account : — 



The cavern is situated to the north-west of Dobschau, 

 and is approached through a narrow winding limestone 

 valley, "the Stracenaer Thai." It has a general direction 

 from west to east in the interior of a mountain whose 

 slope faces north ; the descent into it varies from oblique 

 to precipitous, the entrance, which is very narrow, being 

 situated at the highest point of the cavern ; the ice con- 

 sists of innumerable layers frozen together one upon the 



' Djbschau is situated a little to the south of the Kaschau-Oderberger- 

 Bahn, the nearest statijn en that line being Iglo. 



