THE WEATHER OF THE BAILIWICK IN 1916, 



WITH TABLE OF THE SAEK AND ALDERNEY RAINFALL. 

 BY BASIL T. ROWSWELL. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



TEMPERATURE. RAINFALL. RAIN DAYS. 



Actual. Normal. Actual. Normal. Actual. Normal, 



deg. deg. in. in. 



1916 50-8 35-03 197 



1915 50-5 ° 12 41-82 54D ' 189 ZU6 l 



The excessive total of rainfall with which both the year 1914 

 and 1915 ended was not repeated in 1916. True, in the first 

 three months the conditions seemed to be again shaping to that 

 end, for March went out with the year's total to date no less 

 than three and a quarter inches in excess of the normal. Dry 

 weather, however, set in with April and ran on without break 

 until the last week in August, when not only was the March 

 surplus wiped out, but there had grown up a deficit amounting 

 to two and three quarters inches. In a couple of days 

 (August 28 and 29) some very heavy rain quickly reduced 

 this figure by as much as 2*19 in. and the month went out 

 registered as " wet." The better part of September was dry, 

 but the closing days gave an abundance of rain which, as in 

 the case of August, turned it into a wet period. This end of 

 September rain (it began on the 26th Avith the by no means 

 insignificant downpour of 1*80 in.) really inaugurated the 

 rainy season, for with the exception of about a week of dry 

 conditions towards the middle of October and another at the 

 end of November and beginning of December the weather 

 remained unsettled, and the year went out with a surplus of 

 roughly half an inch, for which December, a very wet month, 

 was responsible. In 1914 the surplus was five and a half 

 inches and in 1915 seven and a quarter inches, as based on the 

 Les Blanches average (1894-1913) of 34*57 in. The year 1916 

 was therefore wet, if only moderately so ; it was in addition 

 the seventh successive wet year, a series immediately preceded 

 by five successive dry years. Both Mr. Collenette's average 

 figures of 74 years and mine of 20 years bear out the 

 statement that we are, or have been (for it remains to be seen 



