088 
mr. a. w. Preston’s meteorological notes. 
early date. Going back 130 years it would seem that February 
was warmer only four times, viz., in 1869. 1850, 1794, and 1779, 
but in 1846 it was about as mild. The wind was almost con- 
tinuously from the west, and blew hard at times, particularly 
between the 19th and 27th. 
March. 
This was another extremely mild and windy month, the mean 
temperature being as much as 4.7 degrees above the normal. It 
was the warmest March since 1882, and at the close of the month 
vegetation was forwarder than since that year, even more advanced 
than in the warm seasons of 1893 and 1894. The rainfall was 
about the average, but, as in February and part of January, much 
windy weather prevailed, the prevailing direction having been 
from the south, south-west, and west, caused by constant cyclonic 
disturbances of great violence passing from the Atlantic beyond 
the north of Scotland to Scandinavia. Happily the tremendous 
downpours of rain which accompanied these disturbances in the 
west did not reach East Anglia. The spectacle of fully-formed 
apricots on the trees, and of asparagus, potatoes, and beans showing 
above ground in the month of March is of unusual occurrence, but 
was in evidence before the close of the month under review. 
April. 
Never was the “promise of spring” more ruthlessly thwarted 
than in this month. After a few days of medium temperature, 
with the advent of Easter came a totally different type of weather 
to that which had prevailed for so many weeks, and the country, 
with its full-blossomed fruit trees and gay flower gardens, was 
suddenly plunged into midwinter. Snow fell to a greater extent 
than it had all through the winter season, it being recorded on six 
consecutive days, measuring, when melted, .68 ins., representing 
6 \ inches of snow on the level. There were frosts nightly, and on 
the 20th morning the exposed thermometer fell as low as 19.1 
degrees. There was no return of mildness till quite the end of the 
month, and the results of the cold spell upon the fruit crop was so 
disastrous that it was practically ruined. The mean temperature 
of the month was 2.8 degrees below the average, and it was the 
coldest April since 1891. It was 2.5 degrees colder than March, 
