THE
ESSEX NATURALIST:
BRING THE
Journal of the Essex Field Club.
VOLUME XIX.
A WHIRLWIND AND WIND-RUSH AT GOS-
FIELD ON 26th JULY 1918.
By A. C. W. LOWE, M.A., F.L.S.
(With one Illustration.)
[Read 30th November 1918.]
A FEW months ago, Mr. Miller Christy described in these
pages a remarkable whirlwind and wind-rush which
occurred in the parish of Writtle, on 27th October 1916, tearing
violently across the face of the country for nearly five miles,
causing most serious damage to thousands of trees and to scores
of houses and other buildings.1
I now describe a wind-rush, of exactly the same kind, but
of smaller dimensions and less destructive effect, which occurred
here (Gosfield Hall, near Halstead) at 6 p.m., G.M.T. (=7 p.m.
clock time), on Friday, 26th July 1918. Such phenomena,
though not of extreme rarity, are, nevertheless, very unusual;
and, when they occur, their principal features should, in my
opinion, always be recorded in detail and with the greatest
possible accuracy.1 I was myself an actual witness of the
progress of this particular storm for the greater part of its course.
I have never before seen anything of the same nature, and I
found the sight it afforded to be extremely impressive. More-
over, I have since been over the course followed by the storm
and have observed carefully the effects produced by it. The
more remarkable of these I have noted on the accompanying
chart (fig. 1), copied largely from the 25-inch map of the Ordnance
Survey (xvi., 6 and 11).2
1 See Essex Naturalist, xvii., pp. 136-145 (1918).
2 [It is fortunate that this remarkable phenomenon should have heen both witnessed and
described so fully by Mr. Lowe, who is a man of education and is obviously extremely
observant. As a rule, in such cases, all the evidence one can get is that of uneducated
country people, whose powers of observation are limited and their powers of description
almost non-existent. Consequently their statements are usually more tantalising than
helpful.-ED.]
A