Forecasting the Weather and Storms 285 



bors of safety. It is pertinent here to 

 ask the student of weather forecasting 

 what would have been the direction of 

 the wind and its effect on the coast line 

 if the storm had followed the usual 

 course and passed northeastward with 

 its center over the water instead of over 

 the land. By this time the reader 

 should be able to answer : The winds 

 would have been from the west and 

 much less harmful to mariners, because 

 the surface water would have been 

 driven seaward instead of being banked 

 up in boisterous billows upon the shore, 

 and ships would have scudded out to 

 ocean before the gale instead of being 

 broken up on the reefs. 



West Indian hurricanes are cyclonic 

 in character, but on account of the fact 

 that the diameter of the whirling eddy 

 is much less and the velocity of rotation 

 much greater than in the average cy- 

 clone, it is customary to designate them 

 as hurricanes. In other words, the 

 hurricane is a cyclone of small area, but 

 of powerful vortical action, and conse- 

 quently of great destructive force. 



Chart XI shows the track of the Gal- 

 veston storm. The spirals are not true 

 pictures of the storm ; neither do they 

 represent pressure lines, as other charts 

 have done. They are used to illustrate 

 more clearly than can be done in any 

 other way the eddy-like motion of a cy- 

 clone and at the same time give the 

 location of the hurricane on various 

 dates. 



In explaining the hurricane of Octo- 

 ber 27, 1903 (chart VIII), it was stated 

 that the storm was deflected a little from 

 its normal course by an anti-cyclone that 

 rested over the ocean. A similar dis- 

 tribution of air pressure occurred on 

 September 6, 1900, when the hurricane 

 was over Florida, except that the anti- 

 cyclone covered the whole region from 

 the Mississippi River eastward to Ber- 

 muda and southward to the Gulf. The 

 storm was therefore forced to travel 

 westward around the high to the Texas 



coast before it could turn to the north- 

 east. It was first detected in the Carib- 

 bean Sea. It then moved at the rate of 

 only about eight miles an hour. It in- 

 creased its speed between Florida and 

 the Texas coast to about 1 2 miles. It 

 did not become destructive until after it 

 passed into the Gulf. Then its velocity 

 of gyration became so great that the 

 water was beaten into a fury and great 

 swells were propagated outward in ad- 

 vance of the storm, some of which 

 reached Galveston 16 hours before the 

 hurricane. As the storm passed over 

 the latter city the anemometer registered 

 100 miles per hour and then broke into 

 pieces. This was probably nearly the 

 highest velocity reached, as it occurred 

 at about the time of lowest barometer, 

 which was 28.48 inches. As the storm 

 moved toward the Lakes its rate of trans- 

 lation increased to about 60 miles per 

 hour, but its destructive force was much 

 less on the land than on the water, al- 

 though it produced wind velocities of 

 over 70 miles at several Lake stations, 

 which, by the way, were amply warned 

 of the coming of the storm, as were all 

 Gulf ports. 



Between July and October, inclusive, 

 there are annually about ten tropical 

 storms that touch some portion of the 

 Atlantic or Gulf coast. On an average, 

 less than one per annum is severely de- 

 structive. Most of them are of such a 

 nature that if timely warnings be issued, 

 as they usually are, little loss of life or 

 property occurs. As to the frequency 

 with which these storms visit the Gulf, 

 it may be said that the late Increase A. 

 Lapham, of Wisconsin, carefully pre- 

 pared a list of severe storms, more than 

 thirty-five years ago, to be used by him 

 as one of the arguments for a govern- 

 ment weather service. He showed that 

 from 1 800 to 1 870 ten hurricanes reached 

 some portion of the Gulf coast with a 

 force so marked as to leave authentic 

 records in the local annals of the region. 

 This is an average of one in each seven 



