The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 13

DECEMBER 30, 1934. PART IJ 13 SUNDAY MORNING. Hand of Nature Falls Heavily on Whole World in Freak Weather Year 1 934 35 COLD, HEAT, DROUGHT AND FLOODS SET NEW MARKS HOW SCIENCE ACCOUNTS FOR BERSERK ELEMENTS Assigned Reasons Vary From Spots on the Sun to Concurrences of Meteorological Cycles nprecedented Extremes Recorded in Every Corner of the Earth; Even Climate Is Changed in Spots The following account of he world-wide "frea weather" year of 1934 is based in the mam upon an exhaustive-survey made by the United Press at the suggestion and request of the Los Angeles Times and is composed sn large part of copyrighted articles prepared by United Press staff writers in practically every country in the world. Editor Times. generally shorter duration have been noted chiefly.

There has been a climatic decrease in the former torrential summer rains, and at the same time in the extreme south a reduction in the number and severity of frosts. The freak summer followed a mild winter in 1934. which may have been caused by a change in the course of warm ocean currents. So far, the experts say evidence is lacking that the changes were due to earthquakes on tne ocean floor, as reported recently, but are unable to explain the climate changes puzzling meteorologists nere. i ggrnsn i sura' 1 WTAHCW mvre'n i Mooes Zr- Wplad Vwrw 2000.

He predicted the 1934 drought and held, that 1937 will bring the first considerable relief. Vjv IK 7 IMAMDS gMmMiwss India ST Mvrt'TetMrvir 0HMIS I VI 15 NSW GUINEA chili vi MT stn.rtr tt wo -j 1 fMrrnwrfs, rci I. A AtU-AWtM ww 'f war nrrtvoo 'jjtj eowoow surr Vir tmmmwu" urrt. kwam. L'I ceo World Weather Map for 1934, Drawn by Charles H.

Owens. Mountains near Berne in the early part of the year, but generally speaking the weather was especially CHANGE IN CLIMATE Meteorological officials said numerous theories had been advanced for this climate cnange, but that scientifically so far it. has been found impossible to give any adequate reason. There are. too few meteorological stations In the interior, for one thing, and collecting accurate data from large sections of Brazil as yet is impossible.

At the same time, experts declined to make any suggestions on how changes in the climate here might be related with weather phenomena in other parts of the world. It was noted, however, that even in the Andes Mountains and in countries on the Pacific coast of South America, floods, blizzards and exceptional weather conditions'occurred in 1934 which escaped Brazil completely. CHILE Not even the "oldest inhabitant" could Temember such dizzy pranks as the weather man played in Chile in 1934. Meteorologists tossed their text-books into the fire and decided no theory could hold good against such capers. On January 10, the terrible heat of a record summer the last block of a hitherto unsuspected ice jam, behind Tupungato Mountain, some 20,000 feet up in the Andes, and let loose a flood of water that washed away twelve miles 'of the Trans-Andean Railway and carried houses, bridges and roads all before it Until the record heat wave melted the barrier, the ice Jam had existed for centuries intact, experts said.

In February, an earthquake destroyed several houses In Valdivia. On March 21 unprecedented storms raged in the Andes behind Antofa-gasta with such violence that soon an enormous volume of water swept across the desert sands and tore up fifty miles of track on the international railroad to Bolivia. Five lost their lives and 100 were injured. On May 20 a ten-day storm broke, the magnitude of which had. not been in Central Chile for half a century.

From Coplapo in the north to Temuco in the south, not a town escaped. Many were flooded and thousands were homeless. A score lost their lives. On May 27 a tornado struck Con-cepcion, a type of storm almost unheard of in Chile. Panic ensued as the twister left a trail of ruin.

Four were killed and forty hurt and hundreds of buildings were in ruins. Two days later a tidal wave struck near Talcahuano. covering the tracks of the Tome-Concepclon Railroad. In June another tornado struck Concepclon and only one telegraph line was left intact between there and Santiago. A few days later an earthquake shook houses down in Pampa Union, near Antofagasta.

Spring came early and farmers reported fruit trees bowed to the ground with produce. Vegetables were ripe and on the market earlier than at any time in years. On October 25 the latest snowstorm ever recorded in Central Chile fell, covering the ground. It fell for three hours steadily, and in Santiago, where snow is a curiosity, the streets were covered. For several nights the mercury went below zero.

Entire vineyards were destroyed. Truck gardens were black with dead plant life. Fruit fell off the trees. Around Santiago a large truck gardening industry was crippled, and fruit is scarce and dear. DISASTERS IN ORIENT In the Orient 1934 was one of the strangest and most disastrous weather years in history.

Floods, tidal waves and a typhoon played havoc with shipping, destroyed crops and took hundreds of lives from one end of the Japanese Empire to the other. The storms and floods extended from Japan and China to the Philippines and India, taking terrific toll on land and sea. The floods were complicated In Japan by a drought In the southern provinces, which for weeks deprived the people in that locality of ample water supplies and threatened an epidemic. In the north the floods destroyed villages, bridges and communications, the bureau's records show, Toklo residents who sought refuge in the bills and at beaches durt ing the summer returned to learn that those who remained in the city slept under blankets most of the usually stifling season. The weather bureau, however, was little interested in the matter of personal comfort.

They were interested In the fact that the northern floods caused damage totaling yen 20.000,000, and that the drought dried up rice and other crops causing agricultural losses of yen In the major crops. The loss to rice farmers alone was yen and the damaee to sweet potatoes wrs yen 6,000,000. Millet, oranges, wheat, fruit and mulberry trees were dimoged to the extent of yen The flood damage in Korea and typhoon damage In Formosa will dd at lean another $1,000,000 to the weather bill for the past year. The worst storm "of the year struck In September, when a terrific typhoon swept Osaka and wrstrrn Jspan, killing scores and spreading dwolatlon for miles In that industrial and farming section. The wind ws followed by a huee tidal wave whirh swept many into the sea, csusing shipping dumase a well as swkine sesMiore houses and population, into the lrUm titers.

As 1934 folds neatly Into its historical ruche no keen retrospective Insight Is required to the e-curacy of the statement that nothing has been so consistently in the public mind, created so much disturbed thought or been responsible for so many economic upsets as the natural phenomena we call "weath-r." v'-V Weather is usually "unusual." In spite of the comparatively limited vocabulary used in its discussion, "heat, cold, rain, snow, wind, tide, clouds, flood, drought," there is, within these everyday one-syllable words, a gamut which includes so many excesses that almost every human equation is affected. The year Just drawing to a close provided more "unusual" weather than any similar period, since records have been kept. Not only locally, where "unusual weather" is referred to in humorous fashion, but throughout the world the gods have gone berserk with the result that "unusual" is being translated "freak." An unprecedented drought followed by catastrophic rainfall, high tides, floods, unseasonable frosts and heat, storms at sea, queer doings among the constellations of the highways of the sky, are only a few out-of-the-ordinary climatic disclosures of this most unusual year. Here a wiseacre attributes conditions to spots on the sun; there an Astronomer trains his telescope on distant planets and declares a belief that current effects relate to cataclysmic causes millions of light years away, but the average individual taking account of 1934 stock is more Interested in reviewing results as they affect this little world of ours. PREDICT RAIN CYCLE Weather experts in solemn consultation at the California Institute of Technology felt constrained to cautiously predict increased throughout the United States during the next ten or fifteen years marking the end of a thirty-five to fifty-year cycle of drought, In California, at least, this prediction to date is being borne out.

Nevertheless, Dr. William H. Gregg, chief of the United States Weather Bureau, points out that the underlying causes of this supposed cycle are unknown, so there is no basis for a definite prediction. The Weather Bureau is constantly at work studying the possibilities of long-time forecasting and it is reasonable to suppose that in due time the scientists will establish a workable theory. Sudden and severe changes in weather conditions were predicted In April by two prominent astronomers because of presence on sun of a gigantic spot, 16.000 miles in width.

To Earle O. Llnsley of Chabot Observatory of Mills College, and Dr. Albert Newlin, protege of rather Ricard, padre of, the rains, the spot means forthcoming storms, electrical disturbances and sudden climatic changes. Beginnings of a "big-spot" era, which in the next nine to twelve years may cause change in weather and sun eonditions, have been noted. H.

W. Clough of Arcade, N. predicted before the American Association for the Advancement of Science that warm and dry weather would prevail for the rest of the twentieth century. About the turn of the century there arc likely to be prolonged and disastrous droughts, possibly causing intensive migrations of peoples now Inhabiting regions bordering on deserts. These great droughts will result from the fact that four great weather cycles controlled by the sun will synchronize somewhere around year 2000.

The cycles are thirty-seven, eighty-three, 300 and 1400 years in length. The short ones re peat themselves In the longer. OUR LONG DRY SPELL The warm, dry weather in the Un'lcd States this year is thought to have resulted from phases of a thirty-seven-year and an eighty, three-year cycle ro'uchly coinciding. Around 1350 or 1055 the weather will be exceptionally warm and dry as compared with the past two ccn-tiu-ios. The United States and for-eljn countries have been growing warmer since 1860, culminating in January, 1932, which was warmest jf.uary in 155 years.

Rrcently Dr. Alexander Leaser Dr. Gene Wcltnsh of Columbia University annound historical d'la on "a dry. spcllj much worse than the present one, 600 yean ago. The year 1209 A.

D. clowd a period of extreme dryness lasting nearly a gtncratlon, having begun In 1278. T.ers in the Southwest record the experience on rings. Studies by Trof, A. E.

Douglass of tho Uni versity of Arizona show that in the Southwest there was a constant struggle against drought The late rather Jerome 8. Ricard yi -dieted the present century would be a dry one. with a pesk of ought, due to occur about the year NO FAULT OF FOX Additional losses were reported by the railways because residents found no particular reason for leaving cool well equipped homes to rough it in shacks in the Japan Alps or at the seashore. Hotels, excursion boat companies, makers of swimming suits all suffered. ,1 The drought in the south was not attended by unusual heat However, the mountain streams in the south dried up and cities along the Inland Sea rationed their water.

Men sent wives to the more favored districts. Then In September it rained in the south, precipitation slackened In the north. But a Tokio soothsayer said he 5-5-3 ratios for the United States, had talked to a fox personally and the fox said It was Just one of those things. The population in general agree? with the fox as do some of the men in the weather bureau. In China, seasonal floods of the Yellow River and the Yangtze caused widespread damage, takin? scores of lives.

The dust storms of Pelping and vicinity caused customary discomfort, although the disasters were not exceptional, weather authorities emphasized. 1 In the Philippines, a dozen ty-. phoons took a toll of nearly 300 lives, causing millions of dollars in damage to crops and property. Heavy tropical rains caused floods in many parts of the Archipelago. The rainfall throughout the islands was 20 inches above the year 1933, and approximately 12 inches above normal.

A disastrous typhoon swept the Philippines on October 18, followed less than a month later, on November 14, by a great wind which swept Samar, Leyte, Marinduque, Min-doro, up the Pacific Coast of the Island of Luzon (on which Manila is located) into the China Sea. The Red Cross from November" 30, 1933 to November 30, 1934. furnished relief for jmore than 400.000 persons, victims of storms, assisted by $25,000 donations from the American Red Cross in Washington. IN HAWAII Weather forecast for the next 365 days inhe Hawaiian Islands: fair, warm, gentle winds with occasional showers. The forecasters could have that mimeographed, hang It on the door and close up their bureau 1 they wanted to, so constant is the weath er in this drowsy archipelago, cropping up in mid-Pacific Just below the northern boundary of the torrid zone.

While other parts of the world were making weather history with extremes of heat, cold and devastating storms, Hawaii" got along nicely in 1934 with practically the same doses of sunshine and showers the islands were getting when Capt. Cook beached his boat on the Kona Coast. 150 yean ago. The weather report reads like a Chamber of Commerce essay on climate and hints why Hawaii has be come one of the world's leading vacation spots. Calif ornians will to their records in vain trying to match Honolulu's average of only 5.5 sunless days during the year.

The sun shone at least once every day for 98.5 per cent of the year, which Meteorologist J. F. Voorhecs and his E. F. Levering, claim is pretty nearly perfect.

Hawaii was slightly warmer in 1934 than on the average but neither blistering mainland heat waves nor droughts In the Orient had anything to do with it. The ocean and tha trade winds make Hawaii's weather, independent of other areas. The estimated mean temperature for 1934 was 72 degrees against a thirty-year normal of 71.7. Fluctua tlons were slight Honolulu's coldest day, in April, was 61 degrees; hottest, In October, 87. That phase "it's not the heat.

It the humidity" applies to sticky Hawaiian days, but the air is only about 70 per cent humid, not an overly high average. With the temperature edslng over the average, rainfall during the year had dropped slightly below the thirty-year mean of 81.33 inches. Expectancy for 1934 was approximately 80 inches, a marked rise, however, from precipitation in 1933 which reached only 64 inches. Hawaii's one weather extreme is found on the top of Mt, Walaleale, "Uncle Sam's wettest corner," on the Island of Kauai. That pck has an annual rainfall of 450 inches, equaled nowhere else In the world except poiwlbly at Cherrapunjl, India, in the Himalayas.

Mt. Walaleal breasts the northeast trade winds which rush un through a deep ravine and spurt nut at the top almost-vrrtlcaMy, causing them to spill their moisture in a restricted area. Tropical storms hurricanes and typhoons are unknown in Hawaii though waterspouts cyclones of the sea have flooded portions of the islands at Infrequent intervals. A wind velocity has never been registered in Honolulu strongrr than. fifty miles per hour.

Electric storms a novelty and when they brek are ususllv mild. There hss never been any fog in Honolulu, except in the upland valleys and hailstorms tr exceedingly rape. A FREAK YEAR While there has been more cold, more heat, more drought, more floods and more of other extremes in 1934 all over the world than in any other year of record, it does not necessarily follow that averages will be materially disturbed. Climatic disturbances are based on accurate observations taken ovef a term of years extending all the way from twenty years in some sections to 100 years in others and going back much farther than that on a less accurate basis. The United Press has prepared an interesting and illuminating survey of world-wide weather conditions for the year from which much of the following data is derived.

The United States suffered the worst drought in a century during 1934 in a series of pranks by the weather man which marked the year as one of the most freakish in a generation. The drought in the Middle West caused 2000 deaths and seldom paralleled damage to live stock and crops which in cash ran into bil lions of dollars. The natural dis aster will cause 1934 to go down in history as "the year of the great drought" In California heavy rains caused considerable damage at the start of the year. A long, dry hot summer was detrimental crops in some sections, With Florida shivering, the Mid west was exceptionally late in get ting its fall freezes. The Great Lakes region had a blizzard of real winter proportions early in December, with a foot of snow in many sections.

In New. York all-time records in cold and hot temperatures were shattered. February was the coldest month ever recorded by the Weather Bureau on Manhattan and heat records fell in every summer month. June, July and August. In the West, the drought was not without advantages.

Prices of crops and live stock rose through out the summer, so that produce brought higher prices than last year. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration paid benefits to many whose crops wilted and burned to nothing, and they were not destitute. Unofficial estimates of crop and live stock damages were placed between $2,000,000,000 and but agriculturalists were quick to point out that the farm Income Increased nearly $1,000,000,000 over last year, due in part to the effects of the drought. The Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes regions, which suffered most from the summer drought had comparatively heavy rains during the fall months. States which ap proximated one and one-half times the normal precipitation during the fall months of September.

October and November, Included Maryland, Virginia. Mississippi, Missouri. Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and California. C- WIDER, MORE SEVERE Although the most severe on rec ord, the 1934 drought was not Viewed as unique by Weather Bureau experts. They pointed out that records kept in St.

Paul, indicated the droughts occur at intervals of thirty to forty years. The 1934 drought however, covered more area and was more severe than those of the 1850 and 1890 s. President Roosevelt proposed that a strip of timber be planted on alternate fields from North Dakota to Texas as a possible preventative of future droughts. Such woods would tend to decrease wind velocity and prevent dust storms such as swept out of the Midwest toward the Atlantic Seaboard. The 1934 spring season, March to May, inclusive, was the driest on record for North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.

High temperatures were the rule during the summer. The maximum average temperature for July was 102 deg. at Topeka, and Fort Smith, and 100 at Columbia, Mo. and Oklahoma City. The seasonal temperature reading was above normal from every Weather Bureau station' except Nantucket, and Wythevllle, Va.

1 Reports from repressntatlve cities showed the following daily excess above normal temperatures- since January 1, 1934: Excess In degrees City of temperatures. New York City 0.1 Washington 1.1 New Orleans 1.2 Memphis 18 Cleveland 1.9 Chicago 2.6 Los Angeles 3.4 Portland 4.3 Kansas City 4.6 Denver 4.9 Boise 5.3 Weather Bureau officials pointed out that a swing of not more than 2 dcg. from normal waj not unusual but said deviations of 4 or 5 deg. lor each day In the year certainly were exceptional. During the year the United State? has accumulated more freak weather records than any other part of the world.

These have consisted of cold, heat, drought, floods, hurricanes and destructive tides. DISASTERS; GENERAL Mexico suffered 'from the most disastrous freeze that country has experienced in years. This was in March and great damage was caused. In India 300 villages were destroyed in floods; 1500 square miles was inundated and 200 were drowned. Cloudbursts, floods and many fatalities occurred during exceptional storms in Palestine.

Hurricanes In Honduras killed 2000 and in Salvador 500 were drowned in floods, thousands were destitute and $2,000,000 damage resulted. In a word the freak weather extended around the world, cost hundreds of lives, did incalculable property damage and broke records which have stood for generations. In South America definite climatic changes are indicated. In the British Isles torrential rains, fierce gales, fogs worse than usual and the greatest drought the country has known since before the American Revolution occurred in 1834. The upheavals were typical world weather in the year Just closing.

These freaks of nature turned the people into sun worshippers, water-savers and a nation seeking shel ter from storms which ripped" through the islands, as though to tear them to pieces and throw them against the shores of Europe. ASIA In Asia winter held on tenacious ly. While Ukrainian farmers were planting wheat under a warm sun, Siberians were still shivering in tem peratures from 20 to 25-deg. below zero. The division of the country into temperature tones was more marked than usual.

From March 10 to May 20 in the south the weather was warm with little or no rain. Crops were parched under the hot sun and officials began to fear a malignant drought. As a result, bread prices were increased. But Mother Nature, late In May, proved herself beneficent and heavy rains watered the parched earth. Crops were replanted with the result that the southern grain yield was little below normal.

By mid-June sum mer had enveloped the entire Soviet Union. Precipitation was normal andj crops throughout the entire country varied from average to excellent The fall season was unusually long and warm. RUSSIA Nature struck but one violent blow at Russia in 1934. Late last summer the city of Suhkum on the Black Sea was flooded. Property damage was heavy and scores lost their lives.

The year otherwise was normal, but marked by swift changes in temperatures. Early in November, a cold wave unseasonal In its time of arrival, sent the mercury down below zero in the northern provinces. November temperatures were 1 to 3 deg. lower than average. In December, temperatures telow tcja were from 5 to 9 deg.

lower than usual. CUBA Cuba, the island republic renowned for Its revolutions and cy clones, suffered from neither of such phenomena during the calendar year of 1934. The absence of the cyclone was due, according to Havana meteorologists, to the excessively high atmospheric pressures which were maintained during the storm season in the Caribbean region, and no revolutions took place principally because of the high pressure exer cised by Col. Fulgencio Batista and the Cuban army, Padre Gutierrez Lanza, S. famed meteorologist of the Bclen College near Havana, compared the mild season of 1934 with the turbu lent one of 1933.

In 1933 no lesa than twenty-one cyclonic movements tumbled over one another, playing hide and seek with the weather -man out in the Caribbean. Cuba felt three of them, the first coming on July 1, an ab normally early date. It started somewhere near the coast of Vene zuela and blew with practically unaltered Intensity as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Only three of four cyclones raged in the vicinity of Cuba in 1934. Of these, the effects of only one were felt, in the form of heavy gales, principally in the Province of Orlente.

Cuba's 1934 rainfall was normal. INDIA India, as usual, came in for the largest world's share of floods, with Rangoon heading the list of damaged towns. Severe gales were experienced at Karachi, India, on May 9. Two inches of rain fell In forty-five minutes, and twenty-five people were killed. Another cloudburst on a similar scale occurred the following day.

At the end of the month, a heat wave hit the Madras Presi dency, while the monsoon rain had not reached Burma by the 21st which constitutes a record for near ly fifty years. Heavy rains in the Himalayas caused disastrous floods in parts of Assam, East Bengal and Bihar late in June. Many villages were submerged and crops destroyed. A great sandstorm swept over the Khartoum district, Egypt, on the 7th, and was followed by heavy rain. Similar floods occurred in August in the Bombay province.

West of Rajshaly the embankments of the Ganges gave way and hundreds of villages were flooded, during September. ENGLAND DRY The greatest drought England ha known since 1743 was responsible for drled-up rivers and reservoirs, damaged crops, parched lawns and tennis courts, and unwashed automobiles. Between June and September, the rainfall in the south of England was 40 per cent below normal, while the mean temperature for these four months. 63.2 deg. FahrH has only been exceeded seven times since 1841.

As a result of the prolonged hot weather, the summer of 1934 will go down in history as the season when staid traffic cops were allowed to open their collars on duty, and even judges on the bench removed their wigs. It was the greatest sunbathing summer in living memory. Also, there was an almost unprecedented winter drought lasting from January 11 to February 25. Another drought set in on May 17 and lasted until June 7, while a third followed in July. By the middle of July, the flow of the river Thames near' London was reduced from Its normal 1,000,000,000 gallons a day to only 270.000,000 gallons, or less than a third.

Drastic restrictions were placed on the use of water throughout Great Britain and prayers for rain were offered in the churches. The three burning, almost bone-dry months of May, June and July were followed by torrential rainstorms which deluged the country, flooding houses, railroads and highways Just at the time when water restrictions were imposed. August was damp and shivery In most parts of Britain, much to the dls-gruntlemcnt of millions on vacationthough the rain, was not sufficient to ease the water shortage noticeably. Despite heavy rainfall In October, the flow of water in the Thames at the beginning of November still was only 270,000,000 gallons a day, and experts predicted 'even more drastic water-rationing for the coming year unless the present winter Is one 'of the wettest on record. The restrictions on washing -automobiles and hosing lawns were not removed until the beginning of October.

The rainfall for the year was approximately 30 per cent below normal, despite torrential rainstorms and gales experienced in tempestuous contrast to the dry, hot spells. FLOODS IN Floods in the SahSra Desert caused tribesmen to pray for a cessation of rain to save their date crops. Both North and South Africa suffered. The highest Nile flood In forty years hit Egypt at the end of August. Towns and villages were ln- undated.

In South Africa, at Bechuanaland, the Molopo River at Kalahari, which last carried water in 1896, was in full flood on April 7. Poland suffered the heaviest damage with about 600 lives lost and $250,000,000 in property damage during the great June "HJds. Two villages were wiped out and fifty persons drowned in Norway, when thousands of tons of rock crashed in a narrow fjord last April, causing waves 200 feet high in the most unusual European disaster of the year. Floods were reported in Rumania during January and navigation was held up by ice at Braila. Belgium came in for its share of unique weather in March and April.

A violent storm accompanied by hail swept the province of Brabant in March. Rain fell unceasingly for I three days. On April 17 during a a passenger train struck by'lightning near Namur in one of the recurrent blasts of nature. While a hailstorm wrought great havoc among vineyards of Tokay, Hungary, drought destroyed crops in Southern Russia during May. In the British empire, outside the British Isles, severe floods and excessive rains were experienced in Guiana during January.

Brush fires due to drought occurred in Southern Australia in March. A heat wave struck that region then, when thermometers registered 110.5 deg. in Adelaide, on March 9, the highest record ever recorded there in that month. In continental Europe, the' 1934 world survey shows these reports on the year's weather: FRANCE While the rest of the continent was suffering, frenchmen enjoyed normal weather. Rainfall was slightly less than usual but no serious dry spells were reported in all regions.

SPAIN Spain in 1934 experienced all the weather extreme known in the meteorological chart. The winter was one of the longest and most severe known in years. The summer was excessively hot but despite this fact a bumper grain crop was harvested. The rainfall was heavy, particularly in Alicante Province, where floods resulted, sweeping away blocks of cement and causing houses to. collapse.

AUSTRIA The year 1934 in Austria will be remembered by many as the year of fire and flood, the fires in most cases being set by lightning in terrific storms. Floods were more general than in years, doing widespread property damage. Thunderstorms in the late summer continued with amazing frequency during the autumn here and elsewhere in the Balkans. ITALY Terrific rains swept Italy during 1934, the volume being estimated at 63 per cent greater ihan normal average. February was disturbed by unique atmospheric phenomena.

Snows, frosts and hailstorms damaged farms throughout Northern Italy. Particularly freakish hailstorms killed thousands of birds. Floods occurred frequently, especially in the mountainous northern provinces. GERMANY Due to exceptional heat in 1934. some fruits yielded twice in Germany this year, one of the numerous phenomena marking the unusual weather.

Strawberries and blackberries appeared in small quantities late in October. Cherries suffered from the steady heat of one of the worst summers In the history of the Weather Bureau. The gulf stream was blamed. It presumably changed Its eourse. coming further south in the North Sea, bringing warm brerics to the Reich.

A nation-wide drought early In the summer failed to cause the feared gcneial crops failure, however, and yields were normal or better. SWITZERLAND Switzerland en-Joyed six "months of warm sunny wrathor in 1934 according to officials of the Geneva Meteorological Observatory. "Summer" arrived early and left late, commencing in May and continuing until tha end of October. Autumn came brusquely, snow falling on the chief mountain ranges early In November. High northwest winds flattened down trees In parts of the Jura IN EUROPE good throughout Switzerland.

Locarno on Lake was the warmest part of Switzerland, be ing sheltered by the Simplon and Gotthard mountains. This part of Switzerland, known as the Swiss Riviera, is somewhat similar cli matically to California. One of Switzerland's coldest winds, the bise, reappeared in Geneva in November. It is a very cold dry wind, blowing across Lake Geneva from the northeast. The medical profession says it acts as a tonic dispelling all kinds of ills.

It is gen erally accompanied by clear weather. SOUTHERN EUROPE By South-central and Southeast Europe 1934 will be remembered for its early and dry summer, its late autumn and for storm freaks. Nothing so striking as the United States drought, dust storm and cyclones was recorded; but. as if in sympathy with these phenomena across the ocean, the Danube Valley and adjacent territory produced a number of anomalous curiosities. Grain crops were damaged by a long dry spell when the kernels were filling out and required moisture.

Damage thus caused was far less, however, than rumors and reports spread on "the world's grain exchanges indicated at the time. The normal fruit crop was re duced in both quality and quantity by the summer drought In the autumn, however. Mother Nature provided some compensation in the form of a small second crop in some districts, notably in Dalmatia- and on the Black Sea coast. By many 1934 will be as a year of fire and flood, the fires in many cases being set by lightning. The floods were more general than In most years but not abnormally large or destructive.

IN SOUTH AMERICA Tremendous changes in the climate of much of the South American continent were noticeable during 1934. In Argentina and Brazil, this has been particularly noticeable. The weather has been more freakish on the west coast, particularly in Chile; but on the Atlantic side of this continent, the entire climate Is shifting, it was agreed. In. Argentina, this phenomenon is noticeable in a gradual but certain change to a more temperate, climate, with less extremes of heat and cold, of drought and torrential rains, than a generation ago.

This has been particularly in evidence in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Cordoba and, In lesser degree, in the arid Pampn Central. Scientists, puzzled somewhat by this shift, believed cultivation of the soil and extensive planting of trees where formerly undulating, treeless prairie land alone existed, have tended to increase rainfall and discourage ex tremea of heat There were numerous isolated instances of extremes in temperature, however, during 1934. During the summer months Buenos Aires sweltered under temperatures upwards of 102 deg. while Bahal Blanca and Cordoba set records of 110 dcg. in the dog days.

A succession of severe night frosts in the early spring played havoc with the vineyards" of Mcndoza, dealing a hard blow at the already hard -hit wine industry. A severe earthquake rocked Snmpacho, In Cordoba, practically fazing the town and causing large damage. The small countries of South America experienced similar shifts, in lesser drgree. In Brazil, instead of sharply defined hot and cool seasons, the latter lasting about four months, the climate showed a tendency to divide Itself into four Masons wltn far lesa variations In temperature. The greater part of Brazil's square miles of territory lies within the equatorial sone.

where high temperatures are recorded the year round. Virtually all the more densely populated southern Industrial regions have a sub-tropical or temperate fllmste I'. her that cooler untmeri ol I A i.