VIOLENT STORM IN ENGLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 16 April 1907, Page 1

VIOLENT STORM IN ENGLAND.

BUILDINGS fiAMAGfED IN LONDON;

English meteorological history has few parallels for the terrific tempest which has raged over this country, as well as a great part of Europe, during the greater part of tho current week, (writes a London correspondent under date Feffruary 22). It has been technically a true cyclone of extraordinary magnitude and violence. Its advent was i so sudden that it came as a general sur- | prise. It was only a few veteran watchers of the skies and glass who susp ected last Tuesday afternoon that an exceptionally heavy gale was at hand. It was, indeed, more a sinister aspect of the clouds, added to the reports from abroad of a falling glass that suggested the proximity of the storm. For the barometer, locally, had hardly begun any serious descent wfion the storm was upon us. To add to its grim and menacing character, the hurricaile burst upon us almost exactly at midnight. . During the whole of that night and the' following day and night it raged with amazing fury, pnd even now, on Friday, it is only lulliiig by degrees. Some of its freaks have been very remarkable. It is not usual in London, with its lofty buildings, and its comparatively narrow and sheltered streets, to see windows and shop fronts blown bodily in. ljut that oc- j curred in several cases on the present ' occasion. In Fleet-street, s not many yards from the London office of the \ New Zealand Associated Press, a heavy ; mass of stone coping was blown bodily I over and fell with a terrific crash up- . on the pathway, fortunately without | hitting any passer-by. There was also great destruction qt old and valued trees in various parks and gardens; ie ' the suCurbs and the country the devastation was enormous. One provincial bank was simply crumpled up . like a Chinese lantern ; a vast drillshe.d was forcibly entered by the wind through' the smashed windows and doors, the immediate result being that the whole roof was hurled bodily skyward, desrmrtin^ in a confused mixture of broken ;;'nsß, splintered wood, and twisted iron. Happily no one was injured seriously in that mishap, but many lives kave beell lost throughout the country and around the coasts by falling trees, wrecked buildings, and shipwreck. •■ ] One incident may illustrate the ap- < palling force of the gale. The London and North-Western Main line to Holyhead, the principal communication between London and Ireland, runs for tho 84 miles from Chester to the Menai ' Strait almost due west along the Southern shore of the Dee Estuary ; it is therefore badly exposed to the full force of the westerly arid horth-westeN ly gales which are so frequent there. When th? gaie was at its height, in the small hours of the morning, the Irish m; : ! irain, hauled by two powerful en;, r :-i;s, was so seriously inipdded by the f'irce of the wind that its speed 'was brcujift down from 50 to five miles an hour, a mere walking pace, and the consumption cf steam was so excessive in order', to make any headway at all that special stops had to be made for water — a sufficiency not being obtairiable from tha track-troughs from which the locomotives take it up at speed. But the second Irish boat train, about two hours later, had a still worse experience, bein.^ actually Brought to a dead sland by the sheer fury of the wind, although the engine, a powerful and relatively hew one) was exerting itself to the utmost to fflafee headway. It lyas only when a ' temporary lull occurred that the dciver was able to indue? h!s locomotive to make another effort. It will be very difficult for the metcurolcgfcal historians to characterise with precision the present winter. It has been, and is, a most eccentric one. There has been a great deal of biting cold and a distinct superabundance of bitterly sharp winds. Yet there has been no exceptionally intense frost, and snow has been nothing out of the way, while psriods of rather unusual mildness have not been rare. Be it observed thut I am speaking now of London and its environs. Over the country in general, and especially in tho north-cast and north-west of England, and still more in Scotland, the winter has been a terrible one— snowstorms, furious gnles. and keen frosts. Throughout almost tho whole of the European Continent these characteristics have been accentuated, more so,, perhaps, in Berlin than elsewhere. One special feature of tho recent phenomenal storm was the unparalled range of the barometer. Shortly before the advent of the tempest the barometer in Northern turope rose to tho extraordinary climax cf 31.r0in, which is believed never before to have been equalled on the earth s surface. At the height of tho gale, the mercury had fallen to 27.50 in. which is said to be the lowest authentic record at sea level; Thus there was a tctal barometric range of no less than .our inches ! Seeing that a drop of one inch, or even half an inch, in the barometer 13 ordinarily enough to produce a very hard gale, it may easily be imapiiiod what a stupendous atmospheric disturbance would be represented by a fall of four inches. Theoretically, the wonder would seem to be that any tree or building could be left standing within the radius of tho cyclone