DEPRESSING THEORY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 54, 25 November 1946, Page 2

DEPRESSING THEORY

17 YEARS BAD WEATHER

series of Cycles

Even the elections have not displaced the weather as a leading topic of conversation—and not without reason, for with the New Year no more than 6 weeks away, the annual average rainfall has already been exceeded by nearly two inches. For weeks on end the weather has been unusually wet, cold and boisterous for this time of the year. Other parts of the country, too, have suffered, and even in London the weather is causing concern. An interesting, if depressing, theory of 35-year weather cycles was recently publicised in the correspondence coloumns of The Times. “In the seventies of the last century there was a series of wet years in the British Isles, culminating in the ‘Black Year’ of 1879, memorable to all who were then engaged in agriculture,” wrote R; A. Gregory. “Another series of mainly wet years, including one almost as equally bad for farmers as the ruinous year 34 years earlier, began in 1909. Now after 30 years or so, it would seem that we are again in a period Qf abnormal wetness and cold. “Francis Bacon, in his essay ‘Of Vicissitudes of Things,’ mentioned the belief in the Low Countries ‘that every five and 30 years the same kind and suit of years and weathers comes about again.’ After a detailed examination of all available records of rainfall and other climatic data, Professor E. Bruckner, of Berne, concluded that there was. evidence that for about half this period of 35 years weather is warmer and drier than the average and the other half colder and wetter.

“The 25 cycles of weather effects found by Bruckner from observations recorded from 1020 to 1890 A.D. varied in length from 20 to 50 years, and gave an average of 35 years. Neither this cycle nor any other yet announced (including ‘Buchan’s periods’) is precise enough to be of practical service in longrange weather forecasts, but the years 1879, 1912 and 1946 fit into it reasonably well as points of melancholy' interest.” Auckland meteorologists have not been able to give any additional information about this theory, but point out that while there were vai’ious theories covering weather cycles much research work had yet to be done and people should not, at this stage, be too pessimistic.