294 The Weather duriruj the Agricultural Year, 1906-1907. 
[Continued from page 291.] 
commenced with a sharp thunderstorm and was especially heavy 
in the midlands, 2‘0 in. falling at Edgbaston, Birmingham, in 
fourteen hours, and 2'8 in. at Great Billing, near Northampton, 
in twenty hours. A snowstorm of unusual severity, for so late 
a period in the season, was experienced in the south-east of 
England on the night of April 6 ; on some parts of the 
Surrey hills the ground was covered to the depth of 6 in. 
The total duration of bright sunshine in the spring was in 
excess of the average in the south and east of England, hut 
rather deficient elsewhere. During the brilliantly fine week 
which occurred at the end of March many places recorded 
a mean of ten or eleven hours per day, the total for the week 
being equal to between 80 and 85 per cent, of the possible 
duration. 
The Summer of 1907. 
The summer was distinguished by a striking absence of 
sunshine and seasonable warmth, and by frequent rains, the 
latter being, however, usually light in the eastern and southern 
districts. 
Throughout the entire season thei’e was only one week 
in which the thermometer rose to any considerable extent 
above the average. In the period thus favoured, the third 
week in July, the shade temperature over central and southern 
England rose to a little above 80'’. In our eastern and north- 
eastern counties it went very little above 7.5“, but in Scotland 
it rose to even a higher level than in the south of England, 
the highest point of all (86”) being attained as far north as 
Lairg, in Sutherlandshire. Excepting in this one warm week 
the thermometer, even in the most favoured districts, scarcelj' 
ever rose much above 75", for a large portion of the time it 
never went above 70", and on many occasions, especially in the 
northern districts, it failed to reach 60". The coolest weather 
of all occurred during the last week in June and the first 
two weeks in July. Over the country, as a whole, the middle 
week in this very inclement period was the coldest experienced 
in July since the year 1890, the mean temperature for the 
whole week being at least 8” below the average in several parts 
of the country, ami as many as 9" below it at Nottingham. On 
the nights of June 29 and July 10, a slight ground frost was 
experienced locally in the more central parts of England and 
Wales, and on the evening of Midsummer Day a little snow fell 
at Harrogate. In the eastern counties the summer was upon 
the whole less cool than in 1902 or 1903, but over by far the 
greater part of England it was the coolest since the miserably 
inclement season of 1888. 
