CLIMATOLOGY OF NEBRASKA. 17 



CHAPTER II. 



CLIMATOLOGY OF NEBRASKA. 



Temperature— Tables of Temperature — Mean Temperature of Summer, 

 Winter and Spring— Bulletins — Autumns — Mean Temperature of the Year — 

 Extremes of Temperature — Winds — Storms of Winter — Purity of the atmos- 

 phere — Ozone. 



THE factors that enter into the determination of climate are tem- 

 perature, forms of relief, condition of the atmosphere, geo- 

 graphical position and rainfall. Before giving the characteristics 

 of the climate of Nebraska, it is important to look at the most im- 

 portant facts that produce them. For this purpose the following 

 meteorlogical tables are introduced. 



Temperature. 



There has been much misapprehension about the temperature of 

 Nebraska. Sometimes it has been represented as possessing a 

 semi-arctic climate; and again that its summers are of a torrid char- 

 acter. To show the real facts in the case, the following tables of 

 daily temperatures for a year are given from the reports of the Sig- 

 nal Service. The stations are on the U. P. R. R., three hundred 

 miles apart, and approximate closely to the mean temperature for 

 the whole State. 



In addition to the tables of the Signal Service, no exhibit would 

 be complete without the results obtained by Dr. A. S. Childs, of 

 Plattsmouth, one of the most careful, conscientious and accurate 

 scientific observers in any country. He has been constantly report- 

 ing, first for the Smithsonian and then for the Signal Service, since 

 1866. Prior to that year he had also been reporting at intervals. 

 The tables prepared by him follow these two from the Signal 

 Service. 

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