MR. A. W. PRESTON’S METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. 763 
an exceptionally mild winter, with but little frost and hardly 
any snow, the month of April, in the second week, gave us the 
worst snowstorm of the winter, followed by some dark and 
ungenial days. The latter part of that month was very warm 
and fine, and, after a showery week at the beginning of May, 
the weather was rainless for nineteen consecutive days. The 
hot week at the end of May has already been mentioned. June 
was fine and dry, and July and August, though good months, 
were on some days exceedingly cool, especially July, when 
there were several days on which the thermometer barely 
reached 60°. The autumn was a very fine one, and was 
protracted far into November, the first sharp frost not occurring 
until the 23rd of that month. Subsequently the weather was 
for the most part mild, until after Christmas, when winterly 
conditions set in. One of the most remarkable features of the 
year was the extraordinarily early start of vegetation, and early 
in January photographs of flowers gathered from the open 
adorned the pages of the illustrated papers. March being less 
warm, vegetation received a slight check, and by the end of 
that month it was less forward than at the same period of 1912, 
which was also an abnormally early season. Owing to the 
absence of frost, garden flowers were not cut off till much later 
than usual, thereby constituting one of the longest flowering 
periods on record. Dishes of ripe raspberries grown in the 
open were exhibited at the Norwich Chrysanthemum Show in 
November. The fruit crop in general was less good than in 
the previous year. Harvest began and concluded a little later 
than usual, and the fall of the leaf was nearly a month later 
than in 1812. 
The mean temperature of the year (49'8' J ) was 0'9° above 
the average, and the year’s rainfall (24'42 ins.) was 1 '33 ins. 
deficient. Bright sunshine (1432‘9 hours) was about 150 
hours less than the normal amount. I have again to thank 
Mr. J. H. Willis for supplying me with his readings. 
