Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1872 — The Atmospheric Wave—A Meteorological Discovery. [ARTICLE]

The Atmospheric Wave—A Meteorological Discovery.

Washington, November 15. Researches of the Signal Office have just been rewarded by a beautiful and highly important meteorological discovery. On the coast of England, from time immemorial, a phenomenon of the great November atmospheric wave has been the speculation of scientists and seamen, but Sir John Ilerschel and others have supposed it was peculiar and confined to England and Western Europe, which it reaches from the South Atlantic, and over which it rolls in long continued undulations from October to January, constituting an important element in the phenomenal character of a European winter. O'a the. 12th of November a similar atmospheric Wave began to breSk over the shores of [ Oregon and British Columbia, as is shown by the weather telegraphs. By the evening of the I.3th, it had spicad over nearly all of the Pacific-States and Territories, Utah, and Nevada, and, at midnight, was pouring through the passes of the Rocky Mountains. On Thursday, the 14th, it descended upon Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory. On Friday it extended in unbroken magnitude from Oregon and Washington Territory ea*tward, through the great trough, or depression, o£L the Rocky Mountain backbone in Idaho and Montana, and stretched thence to the Lower Missouri and Lower Mississippi Valleys, and over the Western section of the Mexican Gulf. This discovery will enable the meteorologists to anticipate by many days the approach of winter, as it advances from the Pacific coast in the great current of westerly winds. It serves to clear up the old mystery of the American winter storms, showing that they originate in the Rocky Mountains, upon whose cold and loftiest summits, in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Southern Wyoming, the vapor-laden air of this wave, coming from over the warm Pacific,is new Seen to be condensed in the overwhelming snows of the forty first parallel. As this vast aerial wave is probably, like the English wave, continued in successive undulations for two or three months, it may assist in explaining the comparatively high temperature and light precipitation in winter along- Puget’s Sound and eastward. .