The character of the snow as it falls varies from the sleety, half-melted drops common in warm air to the fine dust of hard, separate ice-crystals found in the intense cold of a Polar or Continental winter. The feathery appearance of lightly-felted flakes is an intermediate type between the two extremes. In measuring the depth of snow as it lies, care should be taken to select open ground where there is no drifting, and when the snow is not too deep the measurement can usually be best made with a walking-stick on which a scale of feet and inches (or of centimetres) has been cut. Such a stick is useful for measuring the depth of shallow streams, and for many other purposes. The result should be entered as “depth of fallen snow,” so that there may be no risk of confusing the figures with the amount of snowfall estimated as rain. Speaking roughly, a foot of snow is usually held to represent an inch of rain. A violent storm of wind, accompanied with falling or driving snow, is termed a blizzard in the western United States, and a buran in Siberia. The name blizzard has been naturalized in the Antarctic, but it is not known that this phenomenon is identical with the American storm.
Frost.—The appearance of frost in the form of hoar-frost (the way in which atmospheric water-vapour is deposited in air below the freezing-point), or of thin ice formed on exposed water, should always be carefully looked for and noted. In hot, dry countries the intense radiation from the ground at night often reduces the temperature below the freezing-point, although, during the day, the ground may be very hot. The appearance of frost at sunrise is a valuable check on the readings of a minimum thermometer, and in most cases is a more trustworthy datum. Similarly in cold countries, where snow is lying on the ground or ice covering the rivers, the appearance of thaw, especially in cloudy weather, is a delicate test of the rise of the air temperature to the freezing-point. The traveller should never fail to record cases of melting and solidifying of any substances due to changes of temperature. The softening of candles and the freezing of mercury or of spirits give information regarding temperature at least as valuable as the readings of thermometers.
Other Observations.—Any peculiar atmospheric phenomena, such as the appearance of the zodiacal light after sunset, the aurora, the electrical lights seen on pointed objects, and known as St. Elmo’s fire, rainbows, especially lunar rainbows, haloes, the appearance of mock-suns or moons, meteors or shooting stars, should be noted on their occurrence, as many of them are valuable weather prognostics. Attention should also be given to any appearances of mirage, or other effects of irregular distribution of atmospheric density. A mirage is only rarely so perfect as to show ships inverted in the air, palm-grown islands in the sea, or distant oases in the desert. The common form is an unusual intensification of refraction, raising land below the horizon into sight, or apparently cutting off the edges of headlands or islands at sea or on large lakes. It is worth while observing the temperature of the air and of the water or ground when an unusually clear mirage effect is visible.
Another interesting series of observations may be made on the colours of the sky and clouds at sunrise and sunset. A phenomenon often observed at sunset, but the existence of which is still sometimes denied, should be looked for. This is the appearance of a gleam of coloured light at the moment when the upper edge of the sun dips below a cloudless horizon. A note should be made of the nature of the horizon, whether land or sea, and of the colour of the light if it should be observed. When opportunity offers, the first ray of the rising sun might be similarly observed.
The traveller should, at the end of each day, give his opinion of the nature of the weather, saying whether he felt it hot or cold, relaxing or bracing, close or fresh. Such observations have no necessary relation to degree of temperature or humidity as recorded by instruments; but the human body is the most important of all instruments, and everything which affects it should be studied. By paying attention to the foregoing instructions, an observant traveller will bring home a far better meteorological log without instruments than a more careless person could produce by the diligent reading of many scales. Yet, in enforcing the importance of non-instrumental observations, we must not leave the impression that the readings of instruments are of little value. It is, in ordinary circumstances, only by the readings of instruments that the climate of one place can be compared with that of another, and only the best results of instrumental work are precise enough to form a basis for climatological maps.
Instrumental Observations.
The minimum requirement of instrumental observations by a traveller is the reading twice daily of the barometer and of the dry and wet bulb thermometers, to ascertain the temperature and humidity of the air, also the reading once daily, in the morning, of the minimum thermometer which has been exposed all night, and on days in camp of the maximum thermometer also. It is very desirable to expose a rain gauge whenever it is practicable to do so. Unless special meteorological researches are to be carried out, nothing farther in the way of observations need be attempted. A very useful supplement to the necessary observations is the use of a self-recording barograph or thermograph; but these are delicate instruments, liable to get out of order unless very carefully handled, and it will not always be possible to make use of them.
The observer must understand what his instruments are intended to measure, how they act, and how they should be exposed, read, and the reading recorded. He must know enough about all these things to be able to dispense with unnecessary precautions only possible at fixed observatories, and, at the same time, to neglect nothing that is necessary to secure accuracy in the results.