OUR WEATHER.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 93, 10 September 1896, Page 5

OUR WEATHER.

At last night's meeting of tho Wellington Philosophical Society an interesting, though technical, lecture upon "Australian Weather and New Zealand Storms " was delivered by. Major-General Schaw, C.8., R.E. Mr. R. C. Harding, Vice-President, occupied the chair. By means of charts, drawn by Mr. Wragge, Government Meteorologist at Brisbane, and kindly supplied by Sir James Hector, the lecturer traced the course of various summer and winter storms on their eastward track. There seemed to be, he thought, a special nursery , for storms on the shores of Antarctica, whence storm after storm was launched. It will be interesting to hear that Mr. Clement Wragge has such an affection for his storms that he christens them. The progress of Vesta, for instance, from her appearance west of Tasmania across that island and the Tasman Sea till it struck New Zealand, and finished up by wrecking the Halcione at Wellington Heads — taking 16 days to do the journey — proved very interesting. The lecturer said that on an average a storm appeared west of Tasmania in the summer once every fortnight, while in the winter Diana succeeded t Io or Niobe or Clio — as the storms were named — once a week or less. It was one arm of Clio that caused the storm which did all the damage at the Gisborne Breakwater recently. Sir James Hector mentioned the arduous task the lecturer had set himself in order to prepare his address, and stated that the weather-charts were issued at Brisbane at the expense of all the colonies, who daily supplied the information necessary for their compilation. He deprecated making a fetish of cyclones and anti-pyclones, and treating these movements as if they were solid bodies., The remarks of both speakers were received with applause. At the same meeting of the Society a paper entitled " Two New Species of Lepidoptera" was read by Mr. E. P. Hawthorn.