RAINFALL IN HERTFORDSHIRE IN 1883. 
113 
Distribution of Rainfall throughout the Year. —Perhaps one of the 
best and most concise ways of showing this is by dividing the year 
into quarters and also into seasons, showing the relation these bear 
to the mean for 1870-79. 
diff. from mean. 
1 st quarter ... ... — *02 in. 
2 nd „ . — 1*12 ,, 
3rd ,, . ... *29,, 
4th „ . — 1-29 „ 
diff. from mean. 
Winter months ... + 1*17 in, 
Spring . — 1*82 ,, 
Summer . — *95 ,, 
Autumn . -f- *06 ,, 
Py winter months I mean Jan., Peb., and Dec. 1883. The 
winter season of 1882-83 was as much as 2*61 ins. above the mean 
for 1870-79. The wet months were Pebruary and September, 
the fall in each representing rather more than 14 °/ Q of the 
whole, or together upwards of a quarter of the total fall. I 
have no means of judging what the rainfall in this county was 
previous to 1834, when our oldest existing station, Nash Mills, was 
established, but certainly Pebruary was by far the wettest for 
50 years. I may add that September was the wettest since 
1876. On the other hand, although March, usually a dry month, 
yielded the smallest fall, August and December gave the greatest 
deficit compared with the mean, each being somewhere about 4 °/ Q 
of the total fall; the fall of August was considerably less than 
half the ten-year mean, while that of December was exactly half. 
The mean monthly fall differed from the mean fall of 1870-79 
by the following amounts:— 
ins. 
January ... — -21 
February ... -|- 2*00 
March ... — *78 
April. — *37 
ins. 
May . — *44 
June . — *03 
July . -j- *64 
August ... — 1*58 
ins. 
September ... -f- 1*16 
October ... — *51 
November ... -\- *32 
December ... — 1*17 
Distribution of Rainfall throughout the County. —In the two main 
river-basins of the Thames and the Ouse, the fall in the former 
was 1*31 in. below the mean, while in the latter it was *32 in. 
above the mean. In the five districts into which these two 
greater divisions resolve themselves, whilst the Lea district showed 
the greatest deficiency, the Cam district alone showed an excess. 
In the minor districts into which these five again are subdivided 
the mean fall was: 
ins. ins. 
/ Lower Lea 
. 25*66 
Thame 
... Upper Thame ... 
29-09 
( Upper Lea 
. 23*56 
i Lower Colne ... 
29-33 
) Mimram 
. 26*03 
Colne . 
.. Yer. 
29*52 
] Beane ... 
. 28-29 
( Gade . 
29-24 
f Rib 
... ... 26-38 
Ivel 
Hiz . 
25-25 
VAsh 
. 25-23 
Cam 
... Rhee . 
24*78 
The Yer for the second year in succession experienced the greatest 
fall; whilst the Cam, though in excess of the mean, experienced 
the smallest. The greatest monthly fall was 5-00 ins., in the 
neighbourhood of Tring, in Pebruary and again in September; 
the smallest was *54 in., at Hoddesdon, in December; this was 
the smallest monthly fall recorded since August, 1880. 
