Abstract
THE third annual report of the survey of thunderstorms in the British Isles, entitled “Summer Thunderstorms”, has been received (Huddersfield: Thunderstorm Census Organisation. 2s. Qd.). Much of it has been written by Mr. S. Morris Bower, the honorary director of the Survey, but articles have been contributed by Sir C. V. Boys on “Progressive Lightning” and by S. T. E. Dark on “Trees Struck by Lightning”. The Survey is an amateur enterprise somewhat similar to what the British Rainfall Organization was in its early stages. Its development is doubtless made more difficult because the economic importance of the distribution of thunderstorms is, at present, less than that of rainfall. There is the further difficulty that the study of thunderstorms cannot be effectively prosecuted apart from the general study of synoptic meteorology, except in limited directions. In the purely statistical problem of obtaining the best possible cartographical representation of the occurrence of thunder, the Survey had the advantage in 1933 of a number of voluntary observers—1,291—nearly four times greater than the number of full climatological stations co-operating with the Meteorological Office, an advantage greater than the numbers alone suggest in that the observers at official stations do not concentrate on one phenomenon. This report deals with some of the statistical results obtained in 1933, and also includes maps showing the number of days on which storms occurred in different parts of the British Isles in each of the months April-September 1932. The frequencies shown give the number of civil days during which one or more thunderstorms pass overhead, and are therefore not comparable with figures based on the international definition of a day of thunderstorm at any place as one on which thunder is heard at that place. The article on “Trees Struck by Lightning” is accompanied by some interesting photographs showing spiral scoring of tree trunks; it can be seen that the lightning may descend the tree either in a left or a right hand spiral. Sir C. V. Boys's article deals with photographic studies of the duration and length of individual flashes, their direction and velocity, and suggests means for initiating a flash by firing a rocket into the thunder cloud, to assist in studies of this kind.
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Thunderstorms in Great Britain. Nature 135, 144 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135144b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135144b0