The Recent Cloud- Burst in North-East Yorkshire. 305 



seen from the town between 5 and 6 a.m. was ' dark yellow- 

 green ; ' thunder was heard from about 4 a.m. Happily the 

 tide was out wh^n the flooded Esk discharged into the sea 

 between 8 and 9-30 a-m. As far as can be judged, the river 

 deposited far more mud in Whitby harbour than the current 

 took sand to sea ; the water was like soup of a light-stone 

 colour, the sediment being the Oolitic shaley earth of the 

 Goathland district. 



The heaviest downfalls occurred on the Wolds, and between 

 Lilla Howe and Sil Howe ; while very violent rain was ex- 

 perienced on Staindale moor and over the Mulgrave-Dunsley 

 district. An observer at Dunsley states that ' the cloud he was 

 watching suddenly appeared to drop on the ground and deluged 

 •everything.' The Sandsend and Eastrow streams draining this 

 area did great damage, the county bridge over the latter being 

 choked with trees washed out of the Mulgrave woods, was 

 destroyed. An observer at Goathland says, ' after watching 

 a violent storm in the south-east, I noticed the wind-vein 

 suddenly veer round from the north-west, when a dark cloud 

 appeared to drop out of the sky from that direction, and every- 

 thing was obscured by falling water.' 



The track of the storm as already stated, had been north, 

 with a slight deviation to the west. After passing Goathland, 

 its track turns more to the west, unless the above observer is 

 correct in his surmise of two storms, one from Sandsend and 

 the other from the Wolds meeting on the moor to the east of 

 Goathland.* 



The effect of this mass of water on the moorland streams is 

 very marked, and a greater alteration than has taken place in 

 the previous one hundred years of ordinary rainfall was made 

 in half an hour, small waterfalls were converted into rapids, 

 and blocks of stone, some of several tons in weight, being 

 dislodged out of the bank, were carried into the bed of the 

 stream, where forming a block, masses of stone were piled up 



* Since the above was written, the writer has read the interesting des- 

 eription of the storm given on page 256 of ' The Naturalist ' for July, and 

 the ' meeting of two heavy rain-clouds ' may possibly account for the Lilla 

 Howe downpour. The writer also has been able to trace the effect of the 

 storm in all the sea-flowing streams northward to Saltburn ; at Dalehouse 

 (Staithes) another county bridge was undermined, and is now being rebuilt. 

 The only time obtainable as to the downpour is 'early morning'! Does 

 not this lend additional weight to the idea of a storm moving from the west 

 and continuing near the coast, until it turned south to meet the northward 

 moving storm as already described ? 



1910 Aug. I. 



