468 



NATURE 



[June io, 1920 



The Thunderstorms of May 29 and the 

 Louth Disaster. 



THE last week of May was marked b} hot weather 

 all over the country and by numerous thunder- 

 storms, which culminatea in the notable downpours of 

 rain which occurred on Saturday, May 29. The 

 highest temperatures were reported on 'luesday. 

 May 25, when 82° F. was reached in London anu 

 the Thames Vallev. In London the magnificent 

 cumulus clouds made a fine spectacle, but it was 

 further north, in the neighbourliood of Luton, that 

 thunderstorms occurred. Paris suffered from a severe 

 storm on the same day. 



On \\'ednesday, May 26, when an area of com- 

 paratively low pressure extended across England and 

 Ireland, there were thunderstorms in London and in 

 other parts of the country during the afternoon. The 

 rainfall in the west of London was exceptionally 

 heavy. The area affected was somewhat sharply 

 outlined on the west. At Hammersmith the roads were 

 flooded and wood pavements burst up by the water, 

 but at the Meteorological Office, a couple of miles 

 away, only 2 mm. of rain fell. At LTxbridge 33 mm. 

 fell in half an hour. 



The distribution of pressure remained irregular, but 

 lower over the British Isles than over neighbouring 

 countries, and on Friday evening a "low," which 

 appears to have originated over the South of France, 

 began to deepen and to move northward. The map for 

 7h. G.M.T. on Saturday, May 29, indicates the depres- 

 sion by the isobar 1012-5 mb. over the Bristol Channel. 

 At i3h. pressure was below 1012 mb. over the Mid- 

 lands. By i8h. it had fallen to 1009 mb. in the same 

 region. On Sunday morning the depression was over 

 the North Sea, and by the evening, when it had 

 deepened to 1004 mb., it was centred at the Shetlands. 



The rainfall on May 29 was insignificant in the 

 South of England, but falls of half an inch or more 

 were general from Nottingham northwards. The 

 exceptional falls in Lincolnshire and Lancashire 

 occurred before the northward passage of the trough 

 of lowest pressure. As to the downpour in Lincoln- 

 shire, to which the damage and loss of life at Louth 

 are to be attributed, records are available from Hal- 

 lington, in the valley w^est-south-west of the town, 

 and from Elkington Hall, on the hills to the north- 

 west. In each case the measurement was about 

 120 mm. in two hours, giving a mean rate of fall of 

 I mm. per minute. According to newspaper reports, 

 100 mm. fell at Horncastle, twelve miles south-south- 

 west of Louth. 



The area with an exceptionally heavy rainfall 

 included Bucknall, sixteen miles south-west of Louth, 

 with a total fall of _:;4 mm. ; at Lincoln, twentv-four 

 miles away, the fall was 52 mm. ; and at Spurn Head, 

 to the north, it was 35 mm. The boundarv of the 

 area of heavy rain is marked by 34 mm. at Cranwell 

 and 12 mm. at Fulbeck. these places bein£? about four 

 miles apart on either side of the Ermine Street, south 

 of Lincoln. At Skegness onlv 12 mm. fell. There 

 were two thunderstorms in the afternoon, both carried 

 westward bv the wind on the north side of the cvclone. 

 One was at Skegness at 13.1=; G.M.T. , and at Lincoln 

 at 14.30. The other, which was the more severe, 

 moved more slowlv, passing Skegness at i6h. and 

 Lincoln between 18.30 and I9h. 



The Louth disaster seems to have been associated 

 with the former storm. From the evidence at the 

 inquest of a witness from Benniworth, a village on 

 the far side of the Wolds, in the Bain Vallev, it 

 anoears that after a little rain between nh. and 14. t^ 

 the weather cleared, but that at 14.30 the rain sud- 

 denly poured so fast that the house -pipe could not 

 NO. 2641, VOL. 105] 



carry it. " In a moment the fields were at least 8 in. 

 deep in water. I saw a huge cloud in the shape of 

 an egg which kept twisting round. There were three 

 flashes of lightning, very vivid and very shocking. 

 One seemed to pierce through the cloud, and imme- 

 diately afterwards the cloud seemed to come earth- 

 ward." 



Examination of the ground by the deputy coroner 

 indicated that the heavier rainfall had been on the 

 north side of the line from Louth to Lincoln, and 

 that it was more severe higher up the vallev than at 

 Hallingtan, where the rain-gauge, which 'measured 

 120 mm., was situated. It is likelv that the 120 mm. 

 is a fair average for the fall over the basin of the 

 Lud above Louth. This basin contains three or four 

 brooks which unite above the town and drain an area 

 of about 20,000 acres. The Wolds are chalk hills, 

 however, and no doubt the greater part of the normal 

 drainage is underground. This may account for the 

 absence of any provision for the passage of flood- 

 water, but much of the ground slopes at about 

 TOO ft. to the mile, so that water would run off 

 rapidly. Rainfall at the rate of i mm. per minute 

 over an area of 80 sq. km. would feed a stream 

 5 metres deep and 100 metres wide rushing along at 

 160 metres a minute, and the Lud does not appear 

 to have reached such a magnitude as this. The town 

 seems to have been singularlv fortunate in escaping 

 floods in the past, as a rainfall of even one-quarter of 

 that on the present occasion could scarcelv have found 

 its way through the narrow bridges of the town. 



With regard to the heavy falls in Lancashire, we 

 are so fortunate as to have the autographic record 

 from the rain-gauge at Levland, to the south of 

 Preston. The total fall for' the twenty-four hours, 

 qh.-oh. May 30-^1, is about 80 mm., "the like of 

 which the proverbial oldest inhabitant cannot remem- 

 ber." *rhe heaviest downpours were from 16.30 to 

 i7h. and- from 17.55 *" 18.15. I" the latter interval 

 of twenty minutes no less than 40 mm. were recorded. 

 The more dramatic exploits of the flood-water due 

 to this storm appear to have been to the north of 

 Preston, where the main line of the London and 

 North-Western Railwav was interrupted bv the 

 destruction of the embankment near the crossing of 

 the River Brock. In snite of the long duration of the 

 rain at Preston the fall at Blackpool, fifteen miles to 

 the west, amounted to only 5 mm. in the twentv-four 

 hours. 



Annual Meeting- of the British Science 

 Guild. 



.n^HE annual meeting of the British Science Guild 

 ■•■ was held in the Goldsmiths' Hall on Tuesdav, 

 June 8, the chair being taken by Lord Sydenham, 

 president of the guild. 



In his address on " Science and the Nation " the 

 president referred to the strike evil as one of the great 

 industrial problems of the day. The moulders' strike 

 had seriously affected many industries ; loss in coal 

 had reached 50,000,000 tons a year as compared with 

 1913, with serious consequences to the export trade. 

 The evil was due partly to an abnormal state of mind 

 arising from the war, but was originally fostered by 

 the industrial changes oF the last centurv, namely, 

 the general use of machinerv, rendering labour 

 monotonous and leaving less room for the individual 

 skill of the craftsman, and the formation of large 

 comoanies, whereby the personal touch between master 

 and man was lost. Capital unduly concentrated in a 

 few hands might lead to tvrannv. This countrv 

 needed a w'ider distribution of capital. Labour and 

 capital must be reconciled, and science must find an 



