THE INDIAN AND THE SOUTH WIND
Intimately associated with the legend and folk lore of the Indians of
Puget Sound is the south wind, the balmy Chinook, the harbinger, the
first breath of early spring time. It is the precursor of all that is
glorious in pleasant days, sunshine and joy. It comes up over the land,
perfumed and odorous from the sea islands. Its touch is like that of a
maiden’s palm, gentle and soft. Its tread is silent like the flight of
a peri, but it is strong in its coming, for snow peaks and icy crags
melt before it like banks of fog. It may come in May or it may come in
December, and its influence is felt for good. The Indians watch for its
coming as they did for the salmon, the king of fishes, long before the
white man came upon the coast to share in its benign influence.
There was a beautiful superstition or tradition among the Indians that
the Chinook always came in the night time and the white man with all his
learning has never yet proved that it does not. The stolid Indian waked
in the morning, went to the door of his wigwam and found it fanning his
cheeks. The white man came, and he too when he waked himself at morning
would find the Chinook a-blowing. So it is to-day. Though the white man
has had a half century to discover the secrets of this pleasant wind,
they have never yet been told. They only know from whence to look for
it—from over the sea—as did the Indians before them.
As all meteorologists on the coast know and old residents as well, the
prevailing winds of the year are southerly, but all southerly winds are
not Chinook blows. They are as distinctly different as the vesper and
the Dakota blizzard. The Chinook is always a strong, steady southerly
wind, never from any other point of the compass, unless it be slightly
southwesterly. It is distinctly peculiar to the Northwest Pacific coast
and its source is far out in the nasty storm center of the Pacific
ocean, emanating from the famed Japan current which is the source of the
remarkable humidity of the North Pacific coast.
The Chinook is remarkable for the warming-up it brings, and what is still
more singular the glow from its presence is not dependent upon its force.
This peculiar wind is, indeed, not a blow in the sense that the word is
usually taken, but a smooth, steady flow of a great wind current that is
the delight of all who come under its enchanting spell. And what warmth
it brings. By official record on the Sound it has been known to elevate
the mercury in the thermometer 19 degrees in an hour’s time, and yet
the Chinook was not blowing above a 12-mile-an-hour rate. That is good
evidence that the amount of heat it brings is independent of the force of
the wind.
The spring months of the year is the season proper of the Chinook, but
meteorologists say there are exceptions and the old and observant pioneer
will doubtless bear out this statement. It has been observed to blow
in December at Olympia, where is located the oldest weather station in
Washington. There 20 years’ records of the weather in Western Washington,
from a total of 5,700 distinct and separate observations made with a
statement of every plus and minus change of 10 degrees or more in both
the maximum and minimum of the temperature, shows that the months of
the year when the most decided changes occur in Western Washington are
March, April, May and October. During the other months the temperature
varies but little from day to day. Of decided temperature in this
western country 24 degrees is the record of greatest variation in any
24 hours, either of maximum or minimum, that was ever noticed. A change
in the maximum of 40 degrees in 24 hours in Texas in winter is said to
be a common thing. The cause is said to be that immediately preceding a
norther comes a warm, moist wave, which runs the thermometer up to 65
or 70 degrees on a winter day, and by next morning the thermometer has
fallen to 30 or more degrees. By reason of our contiguity to the Japan
current such extreme and sudden changes are impossible.
[Illustration: “KLA-HOW-YA”—HOW ARE YOU]
It is only for two months in the year—July and August—that the prevailing
winds are not southerly; then they may be said to be northerly. June
immediately preceding the first of these two months, and September
immediately following them, each have about 50 per cent of northerly and
southerly winds.
This mere statement of wind courses is really an explanation of the
cause of such a long rainy season on the Northwest coast. By scientific
investigation it has been demonstrated that all cyclonic depressions
originating in or over the Pacific ocean during those ten months of the
year when southerly winds prevail pass at a sufficiently low latitude
to cause the winds in Western Washington to blow from the south or
southwest. These winds always bring up from the ocean that excess of
humidity or moistness which is so characteristic of the country.
[Illustration: SPEARING THE HAIR SEAL]
This prevailing moist-laden atmosphere or wind current from the ocean
and the presence of the towering Cascade barrier paralleling the coast
so closely is the true secret of the peculiar climate. Move the Cascade
range of mountains and meteorologists tell us that we would at once
experience a great difference in climatic conditions. The excess of
moisture now so common on a comparatively narrow strip of coast line
would find its way inland and distribute itself over a vast area of
country. Desert and sagebrush plains would be turned into blooming
gardens, and corn and wine would grow and flow where now only the
sagehen and jack rabbit find congenial homes. The prevailing south and
southwesterly winds would not, say the meteorologists, be interrupted in
their regular course because their source would not be interrupted. And
there is so much of that dirty weather always present in the ocean caused
by the presence of the Japan current which strikes our coast that the
atmosphere would still have its excess of humidity. In the Japan current
lies the source of bad weather off shore and on the coast line. To such a
nicety have meteorologists reduced this potent factor in our weather that
they can always with a degree of certainty scarcely attainable in other
sections, predict the character of the weather coming on.