The climate of the south of Devon : and its influence upon health, with short accounts of Exeter, Torquay, Babbicombe, Teignmouth ... / By Thomas Shapter, M.D.

  • Shapter, Thomas.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climate of the south of Devon : and its influence upon health, with short accounts of Exeter, Torquay, Babbicombe, Teignmouth ... / By Thomas Shapter, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    slight variation indicates an atmosphere charged with fluid, and the slightest depression in its temperature immediately involves the deposit of moisture, either in the form of dew or rain. The winter season is the most damp, the dif¬ ferences of temperature amounting to but two degrees and a third (2*3), nor is the autumn much superior in this respect, the difference being very little more than three degrees (31]). The summer and spring are comparatively dry seasons, the mean difference in the temperature of the dew point, and the atmosphere in the former, amounts to nearly eight degrees (7'9), and in the latter to nearly six (5-9). As regards the months, the dampest is November, when a difference not amounting to one degree and a half (T4) exists ; December is dryer by one degree. The tendency to moisture increases again in January; from this time until July, the atmosphere gradually becomes dryer, until the mean difference of nearly nine degrees (8*9) is attained; it then becomes gra¬ dually moister, until the extreme dampness of November is again arrived at. In general language it may be stated, that from March to September the climate is dry, and during the remainder of the year humid. The dew point alone cannot be taken as a very certain index of the probability of rain; for although the mean maximum temperature at which dew is