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THE TYPHOON OF AUGUST
5TH To 23RD 1924.
I — PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
We publish the extraordinary path of that protracted cyclone, not so much on account of its novel and quite abnormal character, but also in view of the many valuable details it may offer to navigators, We are generally wont to divide the paths of typhoons into three principal classes, leaving aside their minor and secondary motions.
The first kind is composed of those which follow a straight course. Starting from the Caroline Is. the south of the Marianas, or formed on the Pacific, to the offing of the Eastern Philippines, they advance towards the W or the WNW, going very seldom beyond the 20" degree of latitude, and in the end striking the coast, between Cochinchina and Kwangtung. These typhoons occur frequently in the beginning or at the end of the season, before the middle of July or after the first ten days of October.
The second group comprises the typhoons, which coming approximately from the same places, appear chiefly in the middle of the hot season, and attracted by the area of low pressures that prolonge to the N and the NE the deep minimum of India, follow a NW course. towards the Continent, and enter China at any place between Kwangtung and Shantung, to fill up on land. Frequently they deluge our countries with a heavy rainfall, and cause considerable damage throughout whole provinces by the floods with which their passage is attended, raising even at times destructive tidal waves at the mouths of the rivers.
Lastly the third class, the more numerous, is formed by the cyclones, which follow a path that has been named parabolic. The storms of that kind advance generally towards the WNW or the NW at the commencement; starting from their original birth-place they then continue in that direction, until they reach some degrees above the Equator, in latitudes comprised between the 20th and the 30th parallels. There they begin to trace the apex of a curve, roughly parabolic, by veering gradually to the N and the NE, the convexity ot the track being turned to the west. They then move towards the NE, accelerating their speed, when they arrive at the regions where the upper currents of the atmosphere are flowing intensely
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