HOW THE CHINOOK COMES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 29, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 17.

HOW THE CHINOOK COMES.

The Warm Wind of the Northwest.

PICTURE to yourself a wild waste of snow, wind beaten and blizzard furrowed, until the vast expanse resembles a billowy white sea. The frigid air blowing half a gale, is filled with needle-like snow and ice crystals, which sting the flesh like the bites of poisonous insects and sift through the finest crevices. The sun, low down in the southern horizon, looks like a frozen globe, with halves, crescents, and bright prismatic bars encircling it.

Great herds of range cattle, which roam at will, and thrive on the nutritious grasses indigenous to the northern slope, wander aimlessly here and there, or more frequently drift with the wind in vain attempts to find food and shelter; moaning in distress from cold and hunger, their noses hung with bloody icicles, their legs galled and bleeding from breaking the hard snow crust as they travel—they appeal to the hardest heart for pity. It is sure death for human beings to be caught out in one of these awful blizzards, with the temperature down to thirty or fifty degrees below zero, unless rescue is speedy. Yet, such conditions frequently exist in this latitude, as they did for fifteen days in November, 1896, when it seemed as if the elements had conspired to bring about another ice age, and annihilate every living thing.

Would the "chinook" never come? The wind veered and backed, now howling as if in derision, and anon becoming calm, as if in contemplation of the desolation on the face of nature, while the poor dumb animals continued their ceaseless tramp, crying with pain and starvation. At last, on December 1, at about the hour of sunset, there was a change which experienced plainsmen interpreted as favorable to the coming of the warm southwest wind. At sunset the temperature was only thirteen degrees, the air scarcely in motion, but occasionally seeming to descend from overhead. Over the mountains in the southwest a great bank of black clouds hung, dark and awesome, whose wide expanse was unbroken by line or break; only at the upper edge, the curled and serrated cloud, blown into tatters by wind, was seen to be the advance courier of the long-prayed-for "chinook." How eagerly we watched its approach! How we strained sight and hearing for the first welcome evidence of the gentle breath! But it was not until 11:35 P. M. that the first influence was felt. First, a puff of heat, summer-like in comparison with what had existed for two weeks, and we run to our instrument shelter to observe the temperature. Up goes the mercury, thirty-four degrees in seven minutes. Now the wind has come with a twenty-five mile velocity. Now the cattle stop traveling, and with muzzles turned toward the wind, low with satisfaction. Weary with two weeks' standing on their feet, they lie down in the snow, for they know that their salvation has come, that now their bodies will not freeze to the ground.

The wind increases in strength and warmth; it blows now in one steady roar; the temperature has risen to thirty-eight degrees; the great expanse of snow, thirty inches deep on a level, is becoming damp and honeycombed by the hot wind, and we retire satisfied that the "chinook" is a genuine and lasting one.

Twelve hours afterwards there are bare, brown hills everywhere; the plains are covered with floods of water. In a few days the wind will evaporate the moisture, and the roads will be dry and hard. Were it not for the "chinook" winds the northern slope country would not be habitable, nor could domestic animals survive the winters.—From the United States Weather Bureau.