The Weather East and West.
By Editor
IN our recent trip from the East we were favored with beautiful weather and a clear track; no snow to speak of in the entire route. We verily thought that, after so hard a winter as they had in 1884-5, the present winter would be mild. But it is greatly disappointing us. A severe storm over the "Nebraska plains," soon after we passed, nearly stopped travel. When the roads were clear, and travel resumed, a "blizzard" still more severe set in, which is reported as covering a large extent of country. A dispatch dated Denver, January 8, says:— "The blizzard in Eastern Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska, which subsided on Wednesday, and allowed the snow blockade to be raised, was renewed last Wednesday night with great vigor, demolishing telegraph wires for miles, refilling cuts on the Santa Fe, Burlington, and Union, and Kansas Pacific roads with snow and sand to such an extent that all travel was compelled to suspend. Not a single train left Omaha or Kansas City or Denver yesterday. No trains have arrived from the East or departed from here since Wednesday night, when the temperature in Colorado fell 14 degrees between midnight and 5 o'clock." A Chicago dispatch of the same date says:— "The blizzard raging at present throughout Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, and Minnesota, is declared to be of wider extent and more fierce of character than has been known before in years. All Western trains are behind time, many have been snowed in and abandoned, and very little can be learned concerning them, or of the effects of the storm, owing to the blowing down of the telegraph poles and wires and the stoppage of telegraphic communication. The temperature throughout Dakota is stated to be from 20 to 40 degrees below zero, with a wild blizzard blowing. A telegram from Fargo says the thermometer registered 27 degrees below at noon. Yesterday was described as the toughest experience that the city had yet had in the way of boisterous weather. Bismarck reported a high wind with the thermometer 35 degrees below zero. A high wind is prevailing at Sioux City, and the temperature is 20 degrees below. Omaha registered 20 degrees below. Telegraphic communication with Omaha has been cut nearly all day. California telegrams were being sent by way of St. Paul and the Northern Pacific, with only one wire working. A telegram from Des Moines, Iowa, says the cold wave continues there, with a high wind and drifting snow. All through trains west of there are blocked, and the branch roads are snowed under. The Chicago and Burlington trains are stuck fast in the drifts about fifteen miles south of Des Moines. The Wabash road south from that city is badly drifted. The Fort Dodge and Narrow-gauge roads have been abandoned." A dispatch from St. Paul, January 9, says the cold wave is broken, and adds: "The lowest temperature reached was at Minnedosa, Manitoba, where the thermometer registered 52 degrees below zero. On the Northern Pacific, from Brainerd to Fargo, the temperature varies from 27 to 51 degrees below zero, the latter at Wadena." A dispatch from La Junta, Col., on the Santa Fe road, of January 9, says: "Two hundred men with three engines and snow-plows are working on the blockade between Nickerson and Dodge City, Kan. Picks are being used to remove the frozen snow. Six hundred telegraph poles are down between the above points. One thousand head of cattle were frozen on the Colorado plains. Antelope have been driven from the Rocky Mountains. Trains are delayed all along this road, and the local travel is stopped. Two men were frozen to death near Dodge City yesterday. The temperature is from 15 to 20 degrees below zero." But the most surprising news comes from Mobile, Ala., January 9, as follows: "The weather here this morning was the coldest since 1852, the mercury marking 11 degrees below zero. The cold has destroyed the largest cotton crop ever known. The loss will aggregate $750,000." Telegrams show that the storm raged with great severity all along the Atlantic coast throughout the night of January 8, with loss of property and lives. At Atlantic City, N. J., houses were unroofed by the wind. The weather has been cold in California during the last week. Quite severe frosts in many places. The strongest adjectives have been used to express the extent of the cold in Oakland, where the frost nipped the outer leaves of tomato vines and some tender flowers. But, notwithstanding the "awful cold" weather, the lilies, roses, geraniums, marguerites, and numerous other flowers, persist in turning their cheery faces to the sun, as if they had not learned that it is not midsummer. To us the climate of Oakland is highly satisfactory, almost too good for a world cursed with sin.