ABNORMAL WEATHER.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1919, Page 5

ABNORMAL WEATHER.

REASONS FOR CONDITIONSThe abnormal went,her conditions whirl- prevailed during Just iv inter aw! spring, and which have been a mr.rkea feature of th« present stimmex season. wto disensaed by Mr Clement I* Wrag;;e, the noted meteorologist, of .Auckland, thi* week Mr Wraggo remarked that probaMy never before within the record ot present times had the sun displayed such remarkable activity as had been the case during the last few years. Mighty storms from 20,000 to S'l.ooo miles id diameter had been raging with terrifying energy in the sun. with gigantic hydrogen flarnea from 00,000 to 320,000 miles high playing around it, and with winds on an immense scale of which the average man had not the faintest conception. It was held by astronomers and meteorological observers as a sound working ■hypothesis that the fearful energy let loose by the solar maximum had caused the icefields in the Antarctic to become broken up. The ice ban been carried 'by . currents from the high Polar latitude? into the lower latitudes of New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere generally, and, thus distributed furthet north, had intensified the Antarctic low pressure by the uprusli of latent heat set free. Hence Antarctic winds and gradients, passing towards the more rftrifietf atmosphere of the tropics, had eaus»fi the cold weather during the last winter and spring and during; the present summer season. """