Weather and Other Notes. 151 



statistics as to their being- any guide in foretelling- what the 

 weather will be three days hence. 



On looking back over the weather of the year 191 3 as 

 a whole : January stormy, with temperature above the nor- 

 mal. February very mild, a very wet spring, protracted 

 summer drought, followed by an exceptionally mild autumn 

 and winter. The summer, although dry, was not by anv 

 means a hot one. I gather from statistics where sunshine is 

 recorded that the total hours of sunshine for the four months 

 from June till September was below the average. During the 

 year the temperature was in excess of the normal. This re- 

 sulted almost entirely from the warmth of February and the 

 last three months of the year. It has been found that on an 

 average we get the coldest days of the year about the 22nd of 

 January, about a month after the sun has reached its lowest 

 altitude; and the warmest days of the year about the 22nd of 

 July, just about a month after the sun has reached its highest 

 altitude. I find the mean of the difference in temperature 

 between the minimum temperature on the grass and the mini- 

 mum temperature in the screen 4 feet above the ground for 

 the 32 days following the longest and the shortest days in 

 1913, from the 22nd of June till the 22nd of July. The daily 

 mean difference is 2.8 degrees, and from the 22nd of December 

 till the 22nd of January it is 3.8 degrees, a daily mean differ- 

 ence of one degree. 



There were no continued frosts during the year, na 

 heavy falls of snow, no remarkably heavy gales of wind, 

 and no very high floods. 



The rainfall was just one inch below the mean of the last 

 twenty years. 



Flowers generally came into bloom a little later than in 

 1912, while the swallows stayed with us twelve days longer. 

 The plants noted are those growing about the same place and 

 under the same conditions from year to year. All notes (ex- 

 cept where otherwise stated) refer to this immediate locality. 



Since writing the foregoing I have, in The English 

 Mechanic of the 6th inst., read a short report of a lecture by 

 Sir Oliver Lodge to the Institute of Electrical Engineers, 

 under the title of " The Electrification of the .Xtmosphere,"' 



