3d. N. E. storms often pass off without hauling by S. or backing by N., and with or without a clearing off shower, the wind shifting and coming out suddenly at S. W. This they could not do in accordance with his theory, as slipping the card will show.
4th. From June to February it is exceedingly uncommon for a N. E. storm to back into the N. W. They do so more frequently from February to May, especially about the time of the vernal equinox and after; and then, because the focus of precipitation and storm intensity of the extra tropical zone of rains is S. of 42° east of the Alleghanies. His theory requires them to back by N. into N. W. in all cases, when they set in N. E.
5th. When they do back from the N. E. into the N. W., it rarely indeed continues to storm after the wind leaves the point of N. E. by N., and generally, if it does continue stormy, the wind is light, and not a gale, how violent soever the gale from the eastward may have been. Usually, by the time the wind gets N. W., it has cleared off. This, Mr. Redfield, as we shall see, evades by embracing the N. W. fair wind as a part of the same gale. According to my observation, therefore, a very large proportion of the N. E. storms, and they are a majority of the most violent ones of our climate east of the Alleghanies, do not commence, continue, or veer in accordance with his theory, but the reverse; and so long as this is so, I can not receive his theory as true.
6th. S. E. storms do not always, or indeed often, conform to the requirements of his card. When they set in violently at S. E., and continue so for hours without veering, the axis of the storm should be over us, and the wind should change suddenly to N. W. This did not occur in the storm of Sept. 3, 1821, nor does it often, if ever, occur in the summer or early gales of the autumnal months. In the later storms of autumn, and as often in those which are very gentle as any, and in the winter months when S. E. gales are rare, it does sometimes so change after the storm cloud has passed. But in the winter months, as in the storm investigated by Professor Loomis, the storms are frequently long from S. E. to N. W., and the S. E. wind blows nearly in coincidence with its long axis, for a thousand or fifteen hundred miles, till the barometric minimum is passed, and the inducing and attracting force of this part of the storm cloud is spent, and then the N. W. wind follows; sometimes blowing in under the storm cloud, turning the rain to snow; but oftener following the storm within a few hours, or the next day. The storm of Professor Loomis, when over Texas, was not probably more than four or five hundred miles in length. As it curved more, and passed north and east, it extended laterally, its center traveling with most rapidity, and when it reached the eastern coast was about fifteen hundred miles long, and not more than six hundred broad. Along the eastern part of that storm, except when by its more rapid progress the front projected much further eastward over New England than its previously existing line, the S. E. winds blew. When it bulged out, so to speak, by reason of the increased progress of the center, the wind veered to the N. E. The center of the storm passed near St. Louis and south of Quebec, as the fall of rain, the bulging of the rapidly-moving center, and the line of subsequent cold, attest. It is utterly impossible for any unbiased mind to look at the description of that storm, and attribute to it a rotary character. With all the data before him, Mr. Redfield himself has not attempted it directly.[8]
The September storm of 1821 was more violent in character than any which have since occurred. My recollection of it is as distinct as if it occurred yesterday. Peculiar circumstances, not important in this connection, fixed my attention upon the weather during that day and night. There were cirro-stratus clouds passing all day, from about S. W. to N. E., thickening toward night with fresh S. S. W. wind and flocculent scud, such as I have since seen at the setting-in of S. E. autumnal gales. In the evening the wind (in the immediate neighborhood of Hartford, Ct.), veered to S. E., the cloud floated low, it became very dark, and the wind blew a most violent gale. The trees were falling about the house where I then resided, the windows were burst in, and I was up and observant. When the cloud passed off to the east, it was suddenly light, and almost calm. The western edge of the storm cloud was as perpendicular as a steep mountain side, and was enormously elevated, and very black. I have sometimes seen the western side of a summer thunder cloud, which had drawn a violent gust along beneath it, as elevated and perpendicular, but never a storm cloud. No cloud of that depth, or intensity as exhibited by its peculiar blackness, ever floated or will float so near the earth, without inducing a devastating current beneath. After it had passed the ridges east of the Connecticut valley, its top could be seen for a long and unusual period over the elevated ranges.
Now that storm was but an intense portion of an extensive stratus-rain cloud. Such portions frequently exist, and Mr. Redfield admits the fact. Another like portion, in the same storm, passed over Norfolk, Virginia, and the adjacent section, where the wind was N. E., and veered round by N. W. to S. W. Baltimore, and some vessels at sea, were between the two intense portions of the storm, and were not affected by either. Its northern limit was bounded by a line, drawn from some point not far north of Trenton, New Jersey, north-eastward, and north of Worcester, Massachusetts. I was about forty miles south of its northern limit, and north of its center. During that day, and the next, there was wind from S. W. to S. E., inclusive, including the gale, and from no other quarter. It did not at any time veer to the W. or N. W. After the passage of the storm-cloud, the wind was very light. When this intense portion of the storm passed over the valley of the Connecticut, its longest axis was from S. S. E. to N. N. W., and the wind was S. E. the whole length of it. In its passage from the longitude of Trenton to Boston, there was N. W. wind at one point, and but one, and that was in the iron region, at the N. W. corner of Connecticut, at the northern limit of the intense cloud, and owing, doubtless, to some local cause. The direction of the wind in that storm was in accordance with what is generally true of our storms. The wind on the front of the storm depends upon its shape. If the storm is long in proportion to its width (and no other violent autumnal or winter storm has been investigated, to my knowledge), the wind blows axially, or obliquely, on its front. Thus, if long from S. E. to N. W., the wind on its front will blow from the S. E. So, if the storm is long from S. W. to N. E., and has a south-eastern lateral extension, with an easterly progression, the wind will blow axially in the center, and obliquely at the edges. Instances might be multiplied, but I refer to one of recent date and striking character. All of us remember the drought of 1854. It ended in drenching rain on the 9th of September. This rain fell from a belt, half showery and half stormy in character, which had a S. E. lateral extension.
The evening of the previous day there was some lightning visible at the north, and the usual S. S. W. afternoon wind continued fresh after nightfall. The next day we had a brisk wind from the same quarter, and, after noon, the clouds appeared to pile up in the far north, seeming very elevated. They continued to do so, extending southerly during the afternoon, with a high wind from S. S. W., the cumulus clouds moving E. N. E. At 5 P.M., gentlemen who left New York at 3 P.M., reported that a dispatch had been received from Albany, dated 1 P.M., stating that it was raining very heavily there. About 7 P.M., the belt reached us, and it rained heavily from that time till morning. Not far from 8 P.M., and during the heaviest rain, the wind shifted from the S. S. W. to N. E., and blew fresh and cold from that quarter during the night, and till the belt had passed south, and then from N. E. by N., cool, with heavy scud, during the forenoon, veering gradually to the N. N. E., and dying away. After the rain ceased, the northern edge of the belt was distinctly visible in the S. and S. E., its stratus-cloud moving E. N. E., and its scud to the westward.
The front of that storm did not pass over us. It was long and narrow. The wind blew somewhat obliquely inward, along its southern border, to the eastward, and, in like manner, to the westward, on its northern border, but from the N. E. axially along its central portions.
In the last instance, the wind changed from S. W. to N. E. This, too, is impossible, according to Mr. Redfield’s theory. Similar instances, in summer, and early autumn, are not uncommon. But I shall recur to this in connection with the different classes of storms.
Again, the manner in which these S. E. winds co-exist with the N. E., and become the prevailing wind, toward the close of the storm, is instructive, and inconsistent with the theory of Mr. Redfield. In the West Indies, the first effect of the storm is to increase the N. E. trade; the wind then becomes baffling, but settles in the N. W. or N. N. W., in direct opposition to the admitted progress of the storm. At this point, or at S. W., it blows with most force. Sometimes it veers gradually, and sometimes falls calm, and comes out from the S. W., blowing violently. It ends by veering to the S. E., following gently the course of the storm. Thus, Mr. Edwards, in the third volume of his History of Jamaica, as herein before cited, “all hurricanes begin from the north, veer back to W. N. W., W., and S. S. W., and when they get round to S. E. the foul weather breaks up.”