6 



to the 16th the weather was generally fair, with only an 

 occasional trace of rain on the 12th, and with steadily increas- 

 ing temperature from day to day. On the 16th the tem- 

 perature reached nearly 100°, except at Nantucket. This 

 degree of heat is almost unprecedented so early in the month. 

 The drying winds that prevailed helped to make the drought 

 very severe. The temperature fell rapidly on the 17th, and 

 copious rains fell till the 23d, being particularly heavy on 

 the 22d. Threatening weather, with occasional rain and low 

 temperature, continued till the end of the month. On the 

 26th a thunder-storm moved easterly over southern New 

 England, accompanied in the Connecticut valley by con- 

 siderable hail. 



The weather for the month of July was cool and wet, with 

 an excess of cloudy and rainy days. Both the maximum 

 and minimum temperatures were somewhat below the figures 

 generally recorded, the latter unusually so. On the morning 

 of the 28th the mercury ran down to within less than ten 

 degrees of the freezing point of water. At Springfield the 

 mean for the month (69.6°) was the lowest July mean 

 recorded during a period of twenty-four years, covering 

 from 1868 to 1891. At Fitchburg, where there is a series 

 of observations beginning in 1857, the years 1860, 1865 and 

 1884 only show a July mean lower than the present, the 

 lowest being 66.6° in 1860, just one degree lower than in 

 1891. The records at the weather service office in Boston 

 show lower July means in 1881, 1884 and 1888, the lowest 

 being in 1884, and also just one degree lower than in 1891. 

 At Thompson, Conn., where observations for nearly half a 

 century have been made, and with a thermometer that has 

 hung in nearly the same position during all that time, the 

 mean was the lowest, with one exception, ever recorded. 

 That was in 1859, when the mean was 64.9°, less than one- 

 half degree lower than in 1891. 



The precipitation was generally heaviest and the number 

 of rainy days greatest in the Connecticut valley, while the 

 least precipitation fell over that section between the Connecti- 

 cut valley and the coast region. Thunder-storms were not 

 frequent or unusually severe. Hail fell at Cheshire on the 

 20th, during the progress of a thunder-storm. 



