35 
FHE RAINS AND FLOODS. 
October 14—17, 1892. 
From October 12th to 19th an area of low pressure pursued 
a most extraordinary and apparently unprecedented course to 
the south of our Islands. Appearing off the Bay of Biscay, 
it passed due E. to near the Puy de Dome by the 13th ; N.E. 
to Orleans by the evening; to the Channel Isles on the 
morning of the 14th; Falmouth by that evening; S.W. into 
the Atlantic by the 15th; E. into the Bay of Biscay again, 
but further north that evening; to the mouth of the Loire, 
16th; Geneva 17th; and, skirting the Alps, into the Gulf of 
Genoa on the 18th, it passed off towards Leghorn on the 
19th. In this neighbourhood it lingered, and by the 22nd 
had increased in intensity, doubtless causing the great floods 
which followed in Corsica. 
Meanwhile the barometer was also low over Scandinavia, a 
depression over Copenhagen on the 13th, working its way up 
the East coast of the Baltic. On the 14th it split. Part had 
its centre at Hammerfest and then passed eastwards along the 
North coast of Russia. Part passed towards Moscow. A 
wedge of high pressure forced its way between the two main 
areas of low pressure, but fell back on the 15th. This kept 
the barometer steadily high at York, with Easterly winds, a 
condition which usually accompanies our most prolonged 
rainfalls. 
The main depression caused a deluge in Southern France, 
the totals at Nice being 190 on the 13th and 2*56 on the 
14th. 
Our rainfall, which with an unbroken duration of 42 hours 
from midnight on the 13th—14th produced 2*61 inches,* was 
for Y r ork the most prolonged within my recollection. Possibly 
the rainfall, which in August broke up the great drought of 
1868 was more prolonged in South Western England. At 
Ackworth, however, it lasted fifty hours, the total being 3*59 
* This includes a few showers on the 12th. The amounts vary as usual, but as 
the table shows not so greatly as sometimes. 
