EARLY ENGLISH WINTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2082, 27 January 1920, Page 2

EARLY ENGLISH WINTER.

THE present English winter set. in early, snow falling in November. Commenlingon tl'iis unusual experience. (lie Loudon Times says; — “Observation has given grounds for the belief that onr weather runs in cycles of about thirty years, some ten of which are likely lo be welter jiiul (‘older than the average, ten drier and warmer, while (lie remaining ten are transitional and indeterminate. ' At the ‘present lime we are working through the (‘older period of a cycle, corresponding with the seasons towards the end of (he eighties, which many remember to have been of much the same kind. Then, too, chili October was wont to earn its title; the smaller streams ran full oven through summer droughts, as they have been running lately, and abundant pools made generous provision for skating and sliding daring many winter monliis. Those who cherish Ibe literary associations of these paslimes may he interested lo note that Charles Dickens .wrote ‘Pickwick’ when, if this periodicity held good, (lie (-old years of an earlier cycle should still have been fresh in His memory and the experiments of Mr Pickwick and Mr 'Winkle on 1 lie ice at Dingley Dell more appropriate to an English Christmas than I hey have sometimes since appeared. Between 1805 and JOOS, for example, in the Inst warm period, most winters suited hunting rather I lain skating, and for years together certain chalk brooks were entirely dormant which for eight or ten years past have been 1 active during part or even the whole 01. each year. Lest this picture of English seasons should appear too regular to he credible, it must be emphasised that any year, or any season in it, may prove a conspicuous exception to the general tendency. The famous Jubilee summer of. 1887 fell, for example, in a wet period.”