No. 4.] WORK OF WEATHER BUREAU. 185 



stand that when we have a strong east wind here the storm 

 is not approaching us from over the ocean, but it is coming 

 from the west, and that the wind is blowing towards the 

 storm and not from it. 



There are three classes of storms which affect us here in 

 New England, each having a definite path, and each class 

 being accompanied by its own special weather characteristics. 

 The first class approach from over the great lakes, and usually 

 pass down the St. Lawrence Valley. These give us at first 

 easterly winds, which veer to the south and increase slightly 

 in force, generally accompanied with high temperatures and 

 cloudy, rainy weather, and then to the west, with clearing, 

 cooler weather. It is with the southerly winds preceding 

 these storms that we have the excessively hot, muggy days 

 in summer, and the unseasonably high temperatures in win- 

 ter. Sometimes the storm changes its course when it reaches 

 the eastern lakes, and crosses to the south of New England 

 and then up our coast, with high northerly gales, and, if it 

 be in the winter, heavy snows. It then partakes of the 

 nature of the second class, which come from the south up 

 across New England or across our eastern edge. These are 

 more severe than the former class, but are not so frequent. 

 Sometimes one of these storms will be held back when it is 

 over the Middle States, and then we get heavy and long- 

 snow storms. Such a storm was the great blizzard of 1888, 

 when so much damage was done in New York and in some 

 parts of New England. This storm was preceded by mild, 

 spring-like weather, but was followed by one of the most 

 remarkable cold waves on record. Several people were 

 frozen 'to death in Galveston Bay, and much suffering was 

 caused in the South. In New England the thermometers 

 wandered down to over thirty degrees below zero. One 

 Vermont paper noted a record of over forty degrees below 

 zero ; but it added that it could not vouch for the accuracy 

 of that record, as their thermometer became frozen solid at 

 thirty-nine degrees below, and the only way they had to 

 determine the temperature after that was to throw boiling 

 water into the air, and see how far it would fall before it 

 would freeze. 



The next class of storms are termed the West India 



