ABSTRACT OF METEOROLOGICAL TABLES

FOR 1872.

BY R. C. KEDZIE.

In these tables the observations with thermometer in open air, of wet and dry bulb thermometer, of clouds, of winds, and of barometer, are taken at 7 A. M., 2 P. M., and 9 P. M., daily. The barometer is corrected for the temperature of 32° Fah. The force of the winds is estimated by the following table.

WINDS.

This is for the record of the direction from which the wind is blowing as indicated by a vane, and its force by estimation. The direction is entered in eight points of the compass: N., N. E., E., S. E., S., S. W., W., N. W. The force is estimated and registered by the following table, in figures from one to ten:

ABSTRACT OF METEOROLOGICAL TABLES FOR 1872.

Mean height of barometer reduced to 32°, 28.587 inches.
Total amount of rain and melted snow, 26.84 inches.
Thermometer in open air, 45°.54.

82.

Percentage of cloudiness, 57.

Humidity, or percentage of saturation with vapor of water,

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEATHER IN 1872.

The chief characteristics of the weather in 1872 were dryness and cold. The rainfall for the whole year was more than 3 inches less than the average. The temperature was 10.69 below the average, while the month of December was more than 80 below the average temperature of that month, a fitting forerunner of the terribly cold winter of 1813. The period from December 22d to 25th will long be remembered as the severest "cold spell ever witnessed in our State. On the morning of the 24th of December the thermometer stood at 32° below zero. This extreme cold was not confined to our State, but appears to have swept as a polar wave from Pembina in a southeasterly direction across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, thence easterly across Ontario and New York, and thence northeasterly to Quebec. The damage to fruit trees and the suffering which it caused to all classes will not soon be forgotten.

ABSTRACT OF RESULTS OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS TAKEN AT THE MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE FOR NINE YEARSFROM 1864 to 1872-BY R. C. KEDZIE.

In the following abstract the mean daily temperature is given by months, for the nine years; the monthly rain fall; the average cloudiness, 100 being understood to represent the sky entirely overcast with clouds; and the average monthly moisture, by which is represented the percentage of saturation for that given temperature, 100 being used to represent complete saturation.