TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS. 25 
the difference in elevation between its northern and southern sections, 
the State of Alabama is favored by a varied, but in its extremes not 
excessive climate. The climatic conditions give rise in the upper 
part of the State to a vegetation closely related in character to that. 
prevailing in the cooler temperate zone, and in the lower division 
stamp upon it the features of subtropical regions. Such conditions 
admit the successful cultivation within its borders of almost all the 
chief crops and many other useful and ornamental plants raised in 
higher latitudes, and also the cultivation of the great industrial staple 
crops and others serving for the sustenance of man and domestic ani- 
mals, originally derived from warmer zones. 
TEMPERATURE. 
Equally open to the influences of the warm and vapor-laden breezes 
from the Mexican Gulf and the intertropical Atlantic Ocean and the 
cool and drier aerial currents from the north unimpeded by mountain 
ranges or table-lands of very great elevation, the climate is mild and 
equable. The following table, transcribed from the diagram com- 
piled by Prof. P. H. Mell’ from the records of the Alabama State 
weather service, showing for the entire State the monthly mean 
maximum and mean minimum temperatures and their average, exhibits 
the run of temperature during the course of the year. The regularity 
with which it proceeds within comparatively narrow limits from month 
to month, in the line of the mean maximum as well as the mean mini- 
mum temperature, both series keeping close to the line of the aver- 
age temperature, makes the mildness and uniformity of the climate at 
once apparent. 
Data of temperature by months (degrees F.) . 
Jan. | Feb. | Mar.| Apr. | May.}June.|July.| Aug.|Sept.| Oct. | Nov.| Dec. 
4 | 59 64.3 | 70 vi) 83 86.7 | 86 82 72 | 61 54 
2 | 49 57 65.2 | 73 80 81 
5 | 38.7 | 46 56.8 | 65.8 | 73.2 | 75.5 | 73.8]. 66 56 | 44.2 42 
Mean maximum.......... 
Meam average... ....20-2404 
Mean minimum .......... 
BE 
The following gives similar information for the seasons and the 
average temperature of the year: 
Data of temperature by seasons and for the year (degrees F.). 
Spring. |Summer.| Autumn.) Winter. hae 
Mean temperature...... mate 63 80 63 50 68 
Mean maximum (6 years) . 90 94 92 Th esseeseees 
Mean minimum (6 years) - Se 30 38 26 aD: btiese cose 
Widest Tange (6 YEGrs) esusa we cncnraniaaceewaranens 60 56 66 56, |ecinssicrsinicre 
'P. H. Mell, Climatology of Alabama, Bulletin 18, Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion, new series, August, 1890, p. 31. 
