5U6 
MR. A. w. Preston’s meteorological notes. 
percentage of possible duration being 57, against 49 in 1885 and 
1886. The mean of the day temperatures was 75.1 degrees, but 
the nights were occasionally somewhat cool for the season, thereby 
reducing the mean of the month. Wheat cutting became general 
in Norfolk about the 31st. 
August. 
Tins was also a fine summer month, though somewhat cool in 
the third week, and showery and stormy at the close. The rainfall 
of the year being at this time 4| in. deficient, these showers were 
by no means unwelcome. There were no very special features of 
note; and harvest proceeded with but little interruption, being 
completed in most parts of the county by the end of the month. 
September. 
September was unusually cold and cloudy, the mean temperature 
being 4 degrees below the average. It was the most cloudy month 
since November, 1885. The rainfall was about the average, but 
the percentage of humidity high for the season. The rain fell 
l)rincipally in the first, second, and fourth weeks. The third week 
was dry and gloomy with very high barometer. The thermometer 
fell to 33.8 on the morning of the 29th, an unusually low reading 
for September. 
October. 
This was another month of exceptionally cold and dull weather. 
The mean temperature was 4 degrees under the average, and the 
month will rank as one of the coldest Octobers of the present 
century. The highest reading of the thermometer for the month 
(58.6 degrees) was an unusually Ioav maximum for October, and 
is almost without precedent. In the previous October the 
temperature exceeded 60 degrees on fifteen days, and 70 degi’ees 
on three days ; and the month’s mean was more than 7 degrees 
higher than in October, 1887. Although the thermometer did 
not fall below 30 degrees in the screen, and frosts were only 
recorded on four nights, there were many ground frosts of a 
severity unusual so early in the season. The rainfall was but 
little in excess of the average, but the fall of snow on the 12th 
