DARK DAY IN LONDON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20319, 30 January 1928, Page 12

DARK DAY IN LONDON.

EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS. -EFFECT OF SUDDEN CALM . An almost unprecedented darkness brooded over London during nearly the whole of November 23, and in the darkest hours and in the darkest places it was verv dark indeed (says The Times). So dark, in fact, was it that the sky at noon looked exactly like the sky at night, if it was not more sombre than London night skv often is. To those who woke in the thick of things, and to those whose duties are to serve betimes the matutinal needs of society, it was as if the sun had never risen; nor was it until well on in the afternoon, that the heavens began to assume a slightly different aspect indicative of a remote luminosity somewhere. But by then it was too late; the invisible sun was already nearing an invisible horizon, and night followed day without being noticed. The weather correspondent of The Times explained that cold north-easterly to easterly winds had spread across the southeast of England during the previous night and had reached the Western Midlands by 7 a.m., but owing to a very big fall of the barometer out on the Atlantic, due to the approach of a vigorous secondary depression, they died out very suddenly in the forenoon, and there was a period of almost complete calm. In London this calm period was accompanied by complete darkness, which lasted for several hours. This darkness was clearly due to accumulation of smoke in the upper atmosphere; there was little or no fog in the streets. An aeroplane ascent made near Cambridge showed a large " inversion ” of temperature at about a height of 2000 ft, the cold air blew that height being overlain by much warmer air. . Such inversions always hinder the scattering and removal of ‘smoke, and it is probable that the darkness over London was partly due to such an effect.