Snow in Poughkeepsie fell twelve inches deep, and produced excellent sleighing.
At New Haven (Conn.), it began with snow, hail, and rain, on Saturday evening, 11th. The day before was wintery cold. The storm continued, without intermission, till Monday, 13th.
At Boston, it also began on Saturday, 11th, from the northeast, and fell six inches. On Sunday, rain and snow. Monday cold, and indifferent sleighing in the streets.—Boston paper, Nov. 14th.
In Vernon, Oneida County, it began on the 11th, in the evening, and continued, in all, till Monday, 13th, giving us snow, rain, hail, and wind, alternately. On the 15th, the snow, which lay six inches deep, began to thaw, and this was the beginning of our Indian summer.
The Buffalo papers, of November 14th, say that several vessels were lost in the gale and snow-storm, or driven ashore. The storm closed up on the 13th, at New York City; the wind at northwest, and very cold. The rain, snow, and hail which had fallen gave good sleighing a part of that day. These notices cover an area of about five hundred miles square, proving, the universality of our autumnal phenomena.
Indian Summer.
This season appears to be produced by the settling of a thin azure vapor. It is supposed to arise from the partial decomposition of the foliage of the forest after the autumnal rains are past. "What is called the Indian summer," says an observer at Albany, "usually gives us fifteen or twenty days of uncommonly pleasant fall weather, commencing in the early part of October. The present season it set in as usual, and we had a week or ten days of very fine weather, when a northeast storm commenced, and continued for part of two days; within which time more rain is supposed to have fallen than during the whole of the preceding summer and fall. Most of the streams and springs were filled, and the Hudson River, in many places, overflowed its banks. It however again cleared off pleasant, and remained so till Tuesday evening, when another storm of rain commenced, which continued the whole night. In the morning, there was some fall of hail accompanying the rain, and about 8 o'clock a slight flurry of snow, and another on Thursday evening; since which the weather has set in cold, and has the appearance of the closing in of fall or the setting in of winter. We however expect to put off winter and cold weather for some time yet, and anticipate many pleasant days in November."
Indian summer, in Oneida, commenced on the 15th November. The weather had previously been cold, with snow and rain and a murky atmosphere.
Dr. Freeman, of Boston, in one of his occasional sermons, employs the following poetic language in relation to this American phenomenon:—