MR. A. W. PRESTON S METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. 
347 
The Year. 
The mean temperature of the whole year was 50‘5°, which 
was 1 '8° above the average, and higher than that of any 
year since 1898 which gave an identical value. Each month, 
with the exception of November, gave a mean temperature 
above its average, the deficiency for November having been 
only half-a-degree. The rainfall for the year was 26 67 ins., 
which was nearly an inch above the normal quantity, and 
which is remarkable when the great droughts of July and 
August are recollected, but the last two months of the year 
were exceedingly wet, and quickly turned a deficiency 
into a small excess. The bright sunshine returns which I 
have been able to give this year for the first time, through 
the kindness of Mr. J. H. Willis, F.R. Met. Soc., who has 
established a Campbell-Stokes recorder in an excellent 
exposure in his grounds on the Ipswich Road, Norwich, less 
than a mile distant from my own garden, have proved a 
valuable addition in a year noted for its great abundance of 
sunshine. The total number of hours of sunshine recorded 
during the year were 1895'6, or as much as 312’9 hours above 
the officially-computed average for this district. During the 
five months, May to September, inclusive, there were only 
four sunless days, and as there were only three such days in 
April, it makes a tital of only seven sunless days in the six 
months ending October 31st. Temperature exceeded 80° in 
the shade on no less than 25 days, or on 15 days more than 
in the celebrated Jubilee summer of 1887. There has been 
no summer season like it since 1868, although in that year 
the excessive heat began somewhat earlier, but was not quite 
so intense during August as in this year. Harvest began in 
this neighbourhood about July 28th, and was generally con- 
cluded in about three weeks Fruits ripened and flowers 
blossomed much before their usual times. As before men- 
tioned, the whole countryside was much scorched by the 
heat and drought, and the root crop was, in many places, in 
a deplorable condition. In the middle of September not a 
blade of grass was to be seen, but by Christmas the rains of 
November and December had produced grass on the pastures 
as green as in spring. 
