The Remarkable Sunsets

Abstract

ON Friday, the 11th inst., the weather was very remarkable; it recalled to our minds, though on a smaller scale, the storm of December 12, 1883. In the afternoon, about three o'clock, the wind arose with violence, and great squalls alternated with relative calms. The movements of the clouds were also very curious. Layers of air of different elevation floated in various directions, and the lower very low-hanging clouds which moved at the same level had, at different points of the sky, an unequal and changing rapidity. The wind beneath was, at 6 p.m., west-south-west; the lower clouds came from the west, the more elevated, on the contrary, from the north-north-west, so there is no doubt that whirlwinds blew that day in the upper air. The sun had set with a very fine after-glow, and in the ensuing night and morning there fell, now and then, showers of rain occasionally accompanied by snow and hail. Besides, the night before a magnificent halo had been observed around the moon, so that the presence of ice-crystals on January 11, in the higher regions of the atmosphere, is certain. In consequence of the low temperature, the air in those regions must have had a great density, and so, apparently, there must have been a great chance that the whirlwinds on Friday had moved the heavy, cold air from above downwards.