The Winter of 1885-86. 
421 
From a short, but very interesting article on " the Spring of 
1886," which appeared in the ' Times,' the following maj serve 
to show the salient features of that period : — 
"The season from which we are just emerging has been a remarkable one, 
for the persistency, if not for the extreme rigour, of its cold, and it may 
therefore be of some interest to give a brief notice of some of its leading 
features. Up to Christmas the weather had been fairly open, but soon after 
iS'ew ear's Day the cold set in in earnest, and lasted, with but little inter- 
mission, to the end of May. It was the month of ilarch, however, which 
was specially inclement, and this month was ushered in by a snowstorm 
such as has rarely been experienced at that season, at least on the Yorkshire 
moors, while the temperature in Staffordshire, at Upper Tean, near Stoke, fell, 
on the night of the 6th to 7 degrees in the shade, and to - 7 degrees on the 
snow, a most extraordinary temperature for the month. This cold was 
general throughout central Europe, and at Tienna the same night was the 
coldest during the whole winter, the temperature falling to 3 deg. Fah., and 
several cases being noted of persons frozen to death. As for the duration of 
the cold in England, skating was carried on in London to a later date than 
in any season since 1845. At the close of March we had a brief spell of 
warmth, but April was cold, and the ' icy saints ' in the middle of May 
again brought heavy snow to the moors of north and north-west Britain. 
" We have said that the weather up to Christmas was fairly open, but, as a 
fact, the months of September and October had been unusually chilly, the 
former exhibiting the rare phenomenon of a decided frost, for the thermometer 
on the grass at Greenwich read 10 degrees below the freezing-point on the 
27th. November and December were not particularly remarkable for either 
warmth or the opposite, though on December 11th there was some skating in 
the neighbourhood of London. 
" The new year, however, set in with decidedly severe weather, and the 
snowstorm of January 6th in London was the heaviest since the memorable 
fall of January 18th, 1881. The frost during the month was intermittent 
and occasionally severe, and the temperature generally was below the 
average. 
" The subjoined Table, compiled from the weekly reports appearing regularly 
in these columns, shows from the twelve districts into which the British Isles 
are divided, for the purpose of these reports, the average defects of temperature 
in whole degrees, for the first five months of 1886. It will be seen from it 
that the coldest month — for the time of the year — was February, for over the 
whole of England the temperature was at least 5 degrees below the average 
of the last 20 years. Ireland and Scotland were not quite so badly off. 
March was also very cold, especially in the south and west of England ; but 
in the two subsequent months, though the temperature was in defect, it was 
not very far from its normal amount. 
" A good idea of the persistency of the cold may be gathered from the fact 
that for a period of twenty-eight consecutive days from February 19th the 
minimum temperature never reached the freezing-point. 
" The coming in of more seasonable weather in May has been characterised 
by very remarkable phenomena. The cold and snowstorm of May have 
already been noticed, but at that same date, May 11th to 13th, the rainfall 
in the Severn basin was quite unprecedented for the season, and produced 
floods which have not been equalled since 1792," 
