DARK DAY IN LONDON

Evening Star, Issue 19789, 13 February 1928, Page 13

DARK DAY IN LONDON

EXTRAORDINARY CONDITIONS

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 very 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 sky often is.

To those who woke in the thick of things, and to those whoso duties are to serve betimes the matutinal needs of society, it was as if <ho sun had never risen; nor was it until well on in the afternoon that the heavens began to assume a slightly different aspect indicative ot 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 northeasterly to easterly winds had spread across the south-east 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 largo “ inversion ” of temperature at about a height of 2DOO feet, the cold air below 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.