70 
J. HOPKINSON—METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 
June. —Of average temperature, rather humid, with a little more 
cloud than usual, and a rather heavy rainfall on a large number of 
days. The days were colder and the nights warmer than usual, 
the range of temperature being rather small for the month. For 
the first two days the weather was cold, for the next week it was 
decidedly warmer, and it was very warm on the 10th, 11th, and 
12th, the 11th being the hottest day since the 25th of August, 1899. 
The mean temperature of the three days was 66° - 2 at Berkhamsted, 
67°*6 at St. Albans, and 67°*3 at Hertford; and on the 11th it was 
69 0, 5 at Berkhamsted, 70 o, 9 at St. Albans, and 70 o, 5 at Hertford. 
It was the day of maximum temperature, as shown in the tables, 
at all stations, and it is the earliest day in the month at which 
such high temperatures have been recorded at any of them. 
Thunderstorms passed over the county in the morning, the after¬ 
noon, and the evening of the 12th. Mr. Mawley reports that at 
Berkhamsted in the morning the rain fell for one minute “ at the 
very exceptional rate of over 2^- inches in an hour,” and in the 
afternoon rain and hail fell for four minutes at the rate of nearly 
2 inches an hour. During the morning’s storm the “ True Blue” 
public-house, at Buck’s Hill near Chipperfield, was struck by 
lightning. The current of electricity first threw down a large 
chimney, then, passing through a bedroom, loosened the grate and 
ripped pieces out of an iron bedstead; it then made a large hole in 
the floor and passed into the bar below, found its way down a bottle 
of wine, took the lip off a quart measure, and “made a hole in the 
side as if a Mauser bullet had been shot straight through it.” 
There was another thunderstorm on the 25th, when the tower of 
Little H allin gbury Church near Bishop’s Stortford was struck by 
lightning and damaged; and in Winch Hill Wood near King’s 
Walden an ash-tree was rooted up and completely wrecked by the 
lightning, long thin splinters being thrown in thick profusion for 
many yards around the tree. 
July.— An exceptionally warm month, with a very dry atmo¬ 
sphere, an unusually bright sky, and a small rainfall on a very small 
number of days. The high mean temperature was more than twice 
as much due to the warmth of the days (6^° above the average) than 
to that of the nights. The maximum temperature, which varied 
at the different stations from about 88° to 94°, was about the same 
on the 19th, 20th, and 25th, and at Hew Barnet was 3° higher 
than the highest recorded there in July for at least 18 years, and 
higher than any previous record for the county. It is probably 
not only the hottest July on record but also the one with the driest 
atmosphere and the brightest sky. At Berkhamsted the sun shone 
on the average for 8J hours a day and at Bennington for 9T hours. 
There were severe thunderstorms on the 3rd, 16th, and 27th. 
That on the 3rd passed over Welwyn at about 5.15 p.m., the 
rain there being very heavy and large hailstones falling fast. The 
storm on the 16th was a very peculiar one : about an inch of rain 
fell in the north and west of the county, but in the east and 
south there was a dust-storm without rain. This is reported from 
