| Show TP rj r j 11 FT I l big toll T oil taken a re n by clouda cloudbursts ur ats of weather overloaded thunder showers change landscapes new york despite tile widespread prend drought of recent months the present years weather record provides no PS ex caption to the rule that CIO cloudburst ud bursts with their attendant hoods floods cause the loss of many lives find and se several aeverill verill mil lion dollars worth of property in the he united states every summer says bays the file vew new york times an outstanding event of this kind was the recent dis aster at nogales on the arizona alex lean border when about a n score of lives were lost and many houses were wrecked by a cloudburst flood and another case sufficiently striking to make news for the nation occurred later laer in the r month at bingham canyon utah close 10 0 o the worlds largest open opell pit copper mine the term cloudburst used in con with such euch events Is a misnomer but it Is so firmly rooted in our language and words of Ident identical lent Ine meaning aning are anro so BO well established with the name tip application in other lan inn gungel that meteorologists do not to describe exception exceptionally aliv heavy beavy local focal falls of rain under thi this 8 name tho the term tends to perpetuate the erroneous iden that clouds sometimes actually burst and discharge their entire water content instantaneously upon the earth ofine idea this idea Is centuries old it la Is dds cussed with much display of erudition by a german writer write i r named out hoi bof in p a latin work published nt at Gro greningen groningen in 1721 this authority gravely asserts th that at tile the breaking of 0 clouds tihes place when the higher clouds gravid with tain rain and more dense and heavy than the dissolving clouds below them being violently agitated are torn asunder divided fill and broken find and so in a very grent great mass suddenly fall and at a single outpouring vomit forth a tremendous power of water 11 the heavy showers described ns is cloudbursts aro are RISO also sometimes known na As waterspouts water spouts and at one time ime n certain number of scientific authorities nu thorl ascribed these torrential down pours to the ho action of true water pfouts or tornadoes in condensing and carrying aloft in their vortices great brent guan quantities titles of rain which were subsequently allowed to fall when the vortex of the storm was broken up or weakened ns as for example by striking the side of a mountain it Is now recognized however thai most cloudbursts are merely violent thunder showers the rising clr ir currents of a thunderstorm aro are so strong nt at times na as to prevent any rain from falling failing if these currents cur renis are weakened at some boma point a large accumulation of water Is permitted to full fall tit at one time this Is especially likely to occur when a traveling thunderstorm which Is fed by rising of ali air from overheated ground passes p asses kover over the cooler surface of a mountain so that its supply of warm air Is temporarily pora rily cut off air thus Is explained tho the frequency of cloudbursts in rooue tal regions difficulties in measuring the extreme intensity of rainfall fall occurring ang in cloudbursts Is as much a patter matter of speculation as Is tile the ex force of the mad occurring in tornadoes onil and in both cases tile un certainty Is due to 0 o tile lock lack of inspru cental records the cloudburst ilki the tornado Is limited to n area find and tl it burely happens flint a rain auge gauge Is placed nt at atlie point of beav lost lest rainfall in one of these lipse showers sli owera moreover an n ordinary rain gauge ever even if located would hive give no Ind lention of the rate nite of frill during short abort periods of time inc such information can be obtained only with nn an nulo matte ally registering which a continuous record if tile the rainfall minute fly by minute and gauges of this type are anre ns na n rule found only tit nt ilia more important stations an nd observatories one of lie fastest showers ever measure measured with an all ruin gauge was alint of may alay I 1 af porto bello on the I 1 isthmus thum of flat jiin ama in which inches fell it in three minutes this record of intensity was ans assed on april 5 a it 1 camp on the alie west front of the sun babriel la briel range in california w alien 11 en inches inched of rain 1111 tons of water to the nere acre fell in ili one minute this deluge was caught by two rain gauges standing ulde aide by side rind and their records agreed so BO flint the fleure above given Is altogether trustworthy chilt decidedly heavier downpours down pours thian those just mentioned sometimes occur la is tn inferred ferreI from the grew grem amount of 90 soil 11 washing observed in 1 connection with certain cloudbursts this phenomenon I 1 lias aas been noticed not only in hilly find and mountainous country where the flow of the he storm water Is concentrated by the lie effects effeil r of elope but niso in comparatively level regions where huge cavities I 1 arc rol sometimes made mad a by the mere impact of tire the falling failing water one such cavity resulted train an afternoon thunder shower in 1010 1016 on a moor in ili the county of durham england eleven years after the shower its effects were still strikingly gisl ble on oil h 0 gentle slope tile the top layer of grass find and pent peat hall been washed away a over an area of about twenty yby by forty yards on the cheviot hills in july 1803 1893 tire the upper layer of peat over an area of from thirty to forty acres was plowed up by if a cloudburst to a depth of sonic some live ive feet and plied an enormous Inns masses seS john glasspoole nn an english meteorologist has recently recorded a large number of these remarkable cloudburst cavities in the british isles n and nd even more striking exan examples Ples could doubt doubtless doumtjes jes j be found in some solie other parts of the world witnesses of cloudbursts have often described tile the water as coming down in masses or streams rather than in drops tills this characteristic Is said to have linao been observed in the celebrated cloudburst of july 20 26 1810 nt at cats hill N Y when 13 inches of ran rain I 1 f fell L 1 I in three hours effects of terrific rains in boino II places aces writes 1 E N flock of nf tills this storm the streams were so rated find and of such magnitude lint flint es ten to forty feet deep and several cv eral rods long were washed out where no channels or depressions pres press lons lind 11 ever before eN es eased isted ed one ninn mail stopped stepped front from his door into water ile he supposed to be hout two feet deep feel find was drowned in I 1 e en n feet of water astuni st rennis of fulling full liiK water were tilso observed in carter county tenn on little june 1 3 1124 1 when tire the rainfall inno tinted to twelve indies inches in three hours and where gullies of the same sort RON were formed nied Prohn illy tile alie most disastrous cloudburst on reft recard ird was tine flint occurred in the all perill irula of nf sout southern herti boian on oil august 11 during the lie passage of a tYll vp lioon hoon the alie resulting flood drowned more than linn 1 knoo persons and ruined about tam houses lio uses nearly ori 05 inches of nf calif fell in two hours |
