224 BAILIWICK RAINFALL. 



THE WEATHER OP 1915 : INTRODUCTORY. 



Before going into details of the weather of 1915 I have 

 to report a change in the location of the Sark rain gauge. 

 Capt. Henry, who had very kindly given permission for the 

 placing of the gauge on his property at La Vallee du Creux 

 in January, 1906, and, with Mrs. Henry, had taken charge of 

 the station ever since, having come to reside at Guernsey, the 

 gauge has been transferred to Pointe Robert where it is now in 

 charge of the Lighthouse Keepers, Messrs. Warder, Kaye 

 and McCarthy, who most kindly undertook to continue the 

 work began at Vallee da Creux. The gauge was moved at 

 the end of October and is about a quarter of a mile N.E. of 

 the old site at an elevation of 215 feet above mean sea level 

 against 320 feet at Vallee du Creux. 



The year 1915 was cold as well as abnormally wet. 

 At Les Blanches (Guernsey) its mean temperature, 50*5 deg., 

 is 0*6 deg. below the average of the twenty years 1894-1913, 

 while the total rainfall, 41*82 in., is no less than 7*25 in. in 

 excess. The twenty-two years' records at this station shew but 

 two colder and two wetter years. The colder years were 

 1895 and 1909 with mean temperatures respectively of 50*0 

 and 50*2 deg. ; the wetter years were 1910 and 1912 the 

 rainfalls of which totalled 45*54 and 45*55 in. 



All through the twelvemonth (1915) the accumulated 

 rainfall was in excess of the normal, while December's 

 aggregate, 8.39 in., is the second biggest monthly total at Les 

 Blanches of the twenty-two years. The wettest months as 

 compared with the normal were January, February, July and 

 December — the driest, March and June. 



Temperature was variable, but cold spells predominated 

 and warm intervals were of short duration. For instance all 

 through March and April temperature was low, July was 

 very cold and so again was October and November. The 

 better part of May, September and December on the other 

 hand were warm, but both in May and December a cold week 

 sandwiched itself in between more genial conditions. 



Unlike recent years which have given us some severe, 

 and a good many, thunderstorms, 1915 was marked, at any 

 rate as far as Guernsey is concerned, by an almost entire 

 absence of electrical disturbances. Two big downpours of 

 rain occurred in July, the height of the thunderstorm season, 

 but neither was associated with the passage of electrical 

 storms. For the rest, although we had our full quota of 

 gales, fog and sunless days with much of other unpleasant 

 weather, sunshine, one of those good and acceptable things of 



