[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow.

  • Glasgow (Scotland)
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/338 (page 30)
    Temperatures in January, June and the last four months of the year were less than average. The highest recorded temperature for the year was 79° on 1st July. Rain fell on only 195 days compared with 221 in 1951, and is the lowest number of wet days for over 30 years. Rainfall was also less in amount, 35-32 inches compared with 41-46 inches in 1951, and 1952 is therefore the driest year since 1941, when 33-34 inches were recorded. The wettest months were January (4-55 inches), October (3.95 inches), and August (3-90 inches). This last month was the fifth successive wet August for Scotland as a whole. The driest month was February with only 1-70 inches of rain, but this was so distributed throughout the month that there were only 14 dry days, while May, with 17 dry days, had 2-16 inches rain. There was much more sunshine in 1952, 1,280 hours compared with 1,182 in 1951 and 1,181 in 1950, and this total is considerably above the average of each of the three preceding ten year periods. July with 219-7 hours was the sunniest month and the brightest July since 1919. Although only 143-0 hours of sunshine were recorded in April, this was so distributed throughout the month that there was only one sunless day. March, with 91-7 hours was the brightest since 1941, while both May and August totals were below the average for these months. December with only 18-9 hours of sunshine was the dullest month and included one of the worst fogs of the year. Foggy periods in November and December were more prevalent than of recent years and the fog on occasion was both dense and persistent, as when during the intensely cold weekend of 30th November and 1st December it completely disrupted the traffic of the City. Some fog was present on several occasions in January and October, but was less dense and of shorter duration. Considerable damage was caused throughout the country by two severe storms, one on the 15th January and the other on 17th December. An abstract of the meteorological observations for each month of the year and a comparison of the annual averages of preceding years is given in Table IV of the Appendix.