Weather Problems 31 Jan 1927. Numbers of people regard striking events as a sign of what is to come
Scientists Explanation
Earthquakes, hurricane, landslides, meteors, and mysterious lights in the sky all in the first three quarters of
1926! What Is wrong with our age weary world (asks Sir Napier Shaw, the famous meteorologist, in the Lon-
don “Weekly Dispatch”). many people are asking themselves whether there is a special significance in all these phenomena, and some go so far as to wag their wise heads and hint that the end of the world is near at hand.
The terrible hurricane havoc in Florida is the culminating factor in their reasonings and conclusions, and,
while I do not view these happenings in the same light, there is some ground for alarm among those who have not studied the meteorological history of our planet.
Numbers of people regard striking events as a sign of what is to come, whereas in reality they are the re
sults of what has passed. You have often heard that red berries are indicative of a severe winter, but they
are only the sequel to a favourable season that has passed. During this year we have certainly had our share of disasters.
The records show, however, that visitations of this character are not peculiar to 1926 — they have only
been more intense, more destructive, and more severe than usual. The devastating hurricane in Florida is
not a precedent for that part of the world.
The district known to-day as Miami and Palm Beach experienced similar visitations in 1888 and 1903. The damage done recently was heavier, because the place has been developed, and there were more lives to be sacrificed and more property to destroy.
What is the cause of a hurricane, and does it happen “in sympathy” with other meteorological disturbances ? The answer to the first part of the question is that nobody knows exactly how these gigantic whirlwinds are maintained. Observations show that they originate somewhere over tropical seas, and their courses can be tracked like the passage of a bird.
They are a peculiar feature, too, of certain parts of the world. Fortunately for us, the British Isles are not in the zone of these death-dealing hurricanes. We sometimes get them in miniature, as small tornadoes, the land version of the hurricane, and what we get are quite bad enough !
I remember once when I was in Cambridge experiencing one of these little tornadoes. The extraordinary
part ot it was that it came in a “streak.” It swept away nearly every thing in Its narrow course then took
itself off to Norfolk, where it cut a clean track through the woodland.
AN AMAZING FEATURE.
The amazing part, of a hurricane on a large scale is that the whole whirl travels along at ten or twelve miles
an hour, whereas the air In the outer section is whirling round at over a hundred miles an hour. At the centre there is a calm area, “the eye of the storm,” possibly with clear sky in which butterflies and other frail creatures can be found. No, I am afraid it is impossible to give a complete scientific explanation of a hurricane, but the view is held in some quarters that it is caused by the air of the northern hemisphere meeting the air of the southern hemisphere in their common advance towards the equator.
Are “mixed” disturbances, such as hurricanes. typhoons, earthquakes, and tidal waves “in sympathy” ? One
can only reply by saying that they are all parts of one system, and, as such must be allied. Some scientists de
clare that earthquakes and hurricanes occur simultaneously because of the presence of spots on the sun. This may be true, as sun spots affect the solar radiation, and earthquakes may be affected by the positions of the heavenly bodies. It only needs a re lation between the position of the heavenly bodies and the sun spots to pave the way to the connection. Suggestions of such a relation are not lacking.
When the news of the Florida calamity was flashed to the world, many were ready to attribute it to the meteor and the strange illumination of the heavens which were seen in England quite recently. I do not
take this view; for one thing the meteor was travelling in the wrong direction.
Such peculiar manifestations are at the moment scientific mysteries. There was a time when an eclipse of
the sun or mood was regarded as something quite weird and wonderful as a meteor— but we have discov
ered all about eclipses since those days.
Both In regard to meteors and strange lights in. the sky, we are not at all at the end of our knowledge of things that can be. We have a lot to find out yet! After the wonderful discoveries concerning wireless during
the lost decade, who shall say what electric phenomena cannot be produced?
It has been suggested in various quarters that the development of wireless is responsible for disturbances in
the atmosphere — not very likely.
When we consider that there are a thousand thunderstorms going on in various parts of the world every min
ute of the day and night, we can realise that the atmosphere has always been pretty well charged with electric waves!
And what of this wonderful ever-changing weather of ours — a heat wave on Sunday and a cold wave on
Tuesday? Are we reaping meteorological benefits from the misfortunes which have descended upon other
parts of the world? Is the weather, too, linked up with these happenings?
Of course it is — everything is linked up in a sense, but not so that we cannot have a warm week-end in Sep
tember without somebody else losing £20,000,000 in a hurricane. Nor does it follow that because we have a warm “tail” to our summer, we are going to have an unusually long and severe winter.
There are no reasons to suppose the seasons are changing. It can be argued that all meteorological
phenomena are periodic, and an examination of the records shows that there Is some truth in this.
Francis Bacon, in one of his essays, wrote about a periodic recurrence Of storms and the like every 35 years as “a toy,” and the idea has been confirmed by an exhaustive examination of all the available facts by Professor Bruchner.
The subject is very complex, and we have still much to learn. One of the difficulties is that there are many different periodic changes going on at the same time, and the depression of one may cut off the protuber
ant nose of another, and quite spoil its appearance!
To sum up, I do not think that the series of disasters we have experienced In 1926 are portents of a world
cataclysm. Earthquakes are always occurring; there will always be subsidences and landslides, and the scien
tists ot the next generation will be marking the courses of hurricanes and typhoons just as we are to-day.
So far as hurricanes are concerned, September is the height of their season in the West Indies, but I repeat
that we in this country have nothing so dreadful to fear as have the inhabitants of these regions or of the
typhoon zones of the Pacific. Months, even years, may elapse before we get a repetition of the startling events of 1926.
The world will undoubtedly come to an end — and, from the scientific point of view, everything that happens in the heavons or on the earth can be regarded as notice of progress towards that event.