38 National Geographic Magazine. 



coincident with the centre of low pressure increased its intensity 

 or decreased its pressure, and the consequent increase in baro- 

 metric gradients added to the violence of the winds. It should 

 be pointed out, however, that the very heavy rainfalls from Phil- 

 adelphia southward to Wilmington during the 11th, and even the 

 heavier ones over the lower valley of the Hudson and in Connec- 

 ticut during the 12th, may have exercised a potent influence in 

 depi'essing the barometer at the centre of this storm. However 

 this may be, it is certain that the storm remained nearly station- 

 ary, with steadily decreasing pressure until midnight of March 

 12th, at which time it was central between Block Island and 

 Wood's HoU, with an unusually low barometer of 28.92 at each 

 station. During this day the winds were unusually high along 

 the Atlantic coast from Eastport to IsTorfolk ; the maximum 

 velocities at the various stations ranging from 48 miles at New 

 York City and New Haven to 60 miles at Atlantic City and 70 

 miles per hour at Block Island. These winds, though high, are 

 not unprecedented, and if they had been accompanied only by 

 precipitation in the form of rain, the damage on land would have 

 been inconsiderable, but, unfortunately for the commercial inter- 

 ests of New York and other neighboring great cities, the passage 

 of the low area to the eastward was followed by a cold wave of 

 considerable severity and of unusual continuance. 



The northern storm centre, which had passed eastward on the 

 11th, had had the usual effect of drawing in a large quantity of 

 cold air from British America ; a cold wave following the wake 

 of this storm, as is usual during the winter season. This usual 

 effect was intensified by the advance of a second, and more vio- 

 lent, cyclonic centre northward; the effect of which was to aug- 

 ment the cold wave already in progress by drawing in a still 

 larger amount of cold air to re-enforce it. 



As has been already alluded to, the quantity of snowfall was 

 unusually great. The easterly and northeasterly winds had drawn 

 a large amount of aqueous vapor from the Atlantic over New 

 England in advance of the low area. The sudden change of tem- 

 perature precipitated by far the greater portion of the aqueous 

 vapor in the air, with the result of an almost unprecedented fall 

 of snow over western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the valley 

 of the Hudson. 



Professor Winslow Upton, Secretary of the New England 

 Meteorological Society, has gathered estimates of snow from 420' 



