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IV.—Notice of an unusual Fall of Rain in the Lake District, in January 1829

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

John Davy
Affiliation:
London and Edinburgh.

Extract

The rain experienced in January of this year has so much exceeded the average quantity, considerable as that is in the Lake District, that I have been led to consider it worthy of record, especially keeping in mind, that as regards risks from floods, it is not the ordinary, but the extraordinary that is to be guarded against in the construction of all works with which water is concerned as an element of danger.

It may not be amiss to premise, that the year preceding, as to weather, was chiefly remarkable for the mildness of the first quarter, for its high summer temperature, for the unusual cold experienced in November, and this succeeded by a mild December. January set in with weather of the same character, and was without any marked peculiarity, excepting its mildness, till the 9th, when rain commenced, and, with the exception of two or three days, continued to fall more or less heavily till the end of the month.

Type
Transactions
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1861

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References

page 41 note * The rain-fall at Lesketh How, Ambleside, in January, during the preceding six years, has averaged 4·22 inches.

page 44 note * Since the above was written, I have been favoured, by the direction of Lieut.-Col. James, R.E., with the following “List of Ordnance Survey Altitudes, in the neighbourhood of Kendal, &c.:—

page 44 note † The Begister for December is reported incomplete; yet the total for the year is considered near the truth; so dry a year as this has not been known, I am informed, for a long while. The yearly average of rain there is very low, about 17 inches.

page 45 note * Since the above was written, I have been favoured by Professor Allen Thomson of Glasgow; with the following return, comprising nineteen years' rain-fall at Stonefield, the residence of Colin G. Campbell, Esq., in the vicinity of the Crinan Canal, confirmatory of the remark I have made; no doubt, amongst the mountains there, as in the Lake District, the proportion of rain is much larger than at the lower levels.

page 47 note * The capacity of the rain-guage was limited to 9·50 inches; it is stated to have been overflowing, so the amount registered was below the truth. See “Twenty-Sixth Report of the Scarborough Philosophical and Archæological Society for 1857.”

page 47 note † Proceedings of Royal Society, vol. vi., page 39.