Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Report of the Secretary of Agriculture in relation to the forests, rivers, and mountains of the southern Appalachian region

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  • THE CLIMATE OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. By Alfred J. Henry, Professor of Meteorology, United States Weather Bureau. The climate of the southern Appalachian region possesses some distinctive features, yet, on the whole, it is rather closely related to the great continental type of the middle latitudes. The pure type of continental climate— cold winters and hot summers—is found immediately to the westward in the Mississippi Valley and the plains region beyond, up to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The Atlantic slope has a climate somewhat less severe than that of the interior valleys, being oftener under the influence of warm southerly winds in winter and cooling oceanic winds in summer. Intermediate in geographic position between the two climatic eon- . -, , . ditions vary with great areas just mentioned the southern Appalachian topographic tea- tures. region naturally possesses a climate that partakes somewhat of the main features of the climatic zones both to the westward and the eastward. Its distinctive features are lower temperature, both summer and winter, a drier atmosphere, greater rainfall and snowfall, higher wind velocity, and a greater intensity of the direct solar rays. These characteristics are due for the most part to the greater altitude of the Appalachian region as compared with surrounding levels. In a region of such extremely varied topography there must naturally be limited areas in which, owing to some natural advantage of position or exposure, the climatic conditions are materially different from those which obtain over the greater part of the region. Thus, for example, a mountain slope or a valley facing southward would naturally possess it higher temperature and an immunity from frost not to be found in similar orographic conditions with a northern exposure. 147
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).