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(March, with 1589 hours, taking second place), and January, with
40.6 hours, was the dullest. June 21st, the summer's most brilliant day,
yielded 146 hours—a record unequalled since July 1st, 1934.
The mean temperature of 1938 was 50.0 deg.— 1 deg. above the
average. No year since 1921 has been appreciably warmer. Below
are set out the extreme readings of the sheltered and exposed thermometers:—
Maximum in the screen, 83 8 deg., on August 1st.
Maximum in the sun's rays, 1594 deg., on August 1st.
Minimum in the screen, 174 deg., on December 21st.
Minimum on the grass (or snow-surface), 130 deg.,
on December 21st.
The maximum of 1594 deg. by the radiation thermometer (with
blackened bulb in a partial vacuum) attained on August 1st was 5 8
deg. higher than any hitherto recorded at the Observatory back to 1910.
Snow was observed on 20 days during the year, and covered the
ground at 9 a.m. on 14 days, 12 of which were in December. The
accumulated average depth of 9 in. at noon on December 26th was the
greatest since the Christmastide blizzard of 1927.
Thunderstorms (or thunder alone) occurred on ten days, and hail
on two days. Gales were frequent and often severe, particularly on
January 14th-15th, January 28th-29th, February 12th, June lst-2nd
and November 23rd. Fog was rare; on only 14 occasions was it
observed at any time during the 24 hours. Ground-frosts were registered
on 131 nights, July alone amongst the twelve months being
free from them."
VITAL STATISTICS.
Population.
For the purpose of this Report the Registrar-General's estimate
of the population at the middle of 1938, which was calculated to have
been 90,480 has been adopted. This shows an increase of 1,533 as
compared with 88,947 at Census, 1931.