Abstract
LONDON. Royal Meteorological Society, January 15.—Annual general meeting.—Dr. H. N. Dickson, president, in the chair.—Mr. C. J. P. Cave was elected president and Mr. F. Druce treasurer for the ensuing year.— Ordinary meeting.—C. F. Brooks: The snowfall of the United States. The author has collected the data available from more than 2000 stations for the fifteen years 1895–1910, and from the results thus obtained he has prepared a map showing the annual snowfall. The effects of topography, prevailing winds, storm frequency, and the location of the great lakes and oceans in and about the United States on snowfall are very apparent. In the first place, the western coast ranges, the Sierra Nevadas and Cascade ranges, lying in the path of the prevailing westerlies blowing from the Pacific Ocean, bring excessive snowfall (in many places exceeding 400 in. per year) on their western flanks. The dry interior basin just to leeward of these mountains has very little snowfall, except where mountains rise above the general level. The great Rocky Mountain chain again brings copious snowfall (exceeding 100 in. per year in a great many places, from Idaho and Montana south to northern New Mexico, and in some places in Colorado as high as 400 in. a year, and 300 in. per year in southern Wyoming). Again, in the lee of these mountains, the dry western prairies suffer deficient snowfall. On nearing the Great Lakes, snowfall increases, and on the south-east shores of each of the lakes, 80 to more than 100 in. of snow falls annually. The Appalachian Mountain chain brings the lines of equal snowfall far south, there being 50–100 in. in the mountains from Maryland to Maine. In northern New England frequent storms in winter cause a snowfall of more than 100 in. annually. In south-eastern United States snowfall occurs practically everywhere, except in extreme southern and eastern Florida and southern Texas. The Gulf Stream shows its influence as far as Cape Hatteras by bending the lines of equal snowfall far to the north.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 90, 585–587 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/090585a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090585a0