50 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT ON METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AT 

 WISLEY, 1913. 



By R. H. Curtis, Hon. F.R.H.S. 



A SURVEY of the weather of the year 1913 as experienced over the 

 United Kingdom as a whole offers a sharp contrast in some respects, 

 and a striking resemblance in others, to that of the year which 

 immediately preceded it. Both years began with mild and open 

 weather, which continued throughout the first three months, with a 

 marked absence of frost, and a very unusual forwardness in the growth 

 of vegetation and the development of foliage ; in both also there was 

 a check later on, since when the warmer weather became due the 

 temperature (as is shown by the temperature curve in fig. 19) feU con- 

 siderably below its normal level, and so hindered the development 

 of vegetation that the spring became more backward than usual. 

 The cold spell was, however, less persistent in 1913 than in the earher 

 year, and the autumn months were warm and fine. As regards rainfall 

 there was less resemblance between the two years ; the summer of 

 1912 was not only cold but wet ; that of 1913 was dry, and indeed 

 the rainfall of the year as a whole was only normal. There were a few 

 heavy falls of rain in various districts, due to thunderstorms, but 

 nowhere was there anything even remotely analogous to the deluge 

 which descended upon a part of East Anglia in the summer of 1912, 

 and wrought such dire destruction to gardens and farms all over the 

 county of Norfolk. The amount of bright sunshine experienced was 

 also fairly large in the year now under review, whereas the earlier year 

 was one of the most sunless on record. A most unusual phenomenon 

 which distinguished 1913 was the persistence of relatively high tem- 

 peratures up to within a few days of the close of the year, prolonging 

 the flowering of many plants to an abnormal date, and inducing 

 growths of buds, &c., many weeks earlier than they are usually looked 

 for. Quite at the close of the year this unseasonable precocity was 

 checked by a short spell of cold and the first touch of wintry weather. 

 It was not severe, nor did it continue long, but it was welcome for the 

 prospect it offered of more to follow, sufficient to give plants the rest 

 they need between the active growth of the past summer and that which 

 is to follow. The year now closed was not remarkable for gales, nor 

 were there any serious falls of snow, or, with one exception, other 

 meteorological phenomena of outstanding interest. The exception was 

 a remarkable tornado, a fortunately rare phenomenon in this country, 

 but unpleasantly frequent in some parts of America, which made its 

 appearance over South Wales, and travelling up the Taff valley left 

 behind it for many miles a narrow track of wreckage, comprising houses, 

 trees, farms, and farmers' stock, and involving also some loss of life. 



