The Weather during the Agricultural Year , 1907-1908. 387 
rising above 65° in a few isolated parts of Great Britain. 
Sharp frosts were reported very commonly on the 8th and 9th, 
and between the 13th and 15th, but the worst weather of the 
whole month occurred between the 19th and 25th, when the 
country experienced a wintry spell of an altogether unpre- 
cedented character for so advanced a period in the season. 
During this bitterly cold week sharp frosts occurred in nearly 
all districts, and a slight frost even in the Channel Islands, 
while heavy falls of snow were reported over a very large por- 
tion of Great Britain. In the south of England a snowfall 
amounting to over a foot in depth is i*are even in the winter 
time. On April 25 this depth was exceeded in many places, as 
much as 17 inches being measured at Oxford, and 19 inches in 
some parts of south Berkshire. At the close of the month the 
rapid melting of the snow, accompanied as it was by heavy 
rain, produced serious floods in the Thames Valley. 
May opened with a burst of unusually warm weather, and 
although the thermometer failed to remain at so high a level, 
there were throughout the month few occasions on which it 
sank much below the normal. Rather sharp night frosts 
occurred on the 6th, between the 10th and 13th, and between 
the 20th and 23rd, but it was only at a few northern stations 
that the thermometer even on the surface of the grass fell more 
than three or four degrees below the freezing point. In the 
earlier half of the month the weather was very changeable, 
with frequent falls of rain and occasional smart thunderstorms. 
Later on the conditions were finer, and at some places in 
eastern and central England no rain fell for periods varying 
between twelve and fourteen days. Summer warmth prevailed 
in the closing week, the thermometer in the shade rising above 
75° in many places, and touching 81° at Carlisle on the 28th, 
and 80° at Leeds and Isleworth on the 31st. 
For the spring as a whole the mean temperature was below 
the average, but in eastern and central England the night 
readings, taken alone, wefe somewhat above the normal. 
Rainfall was more frequent than usual and was in excess of 
the average, to the extent of more than 30 per cent, in many 
parts of England, and of nearly 40 per cent, in the midland 
counties. Bright sunshine was everywhere deficient, the 
nearest approach to the normal amount being recorded in the 
north-western counties. 
The Summer of 1908. 
The summer of 1908 included two long spells of fine 
weather, interspersed with two shorter periods in which the 
conditions were of an entirely opposite character. The longer 
spells lasted in the first place for nearly a month, commencing 
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