1873 Heatwave Description (see entries about Sunstroke)

THE WEATHER. EXTRAORDINARY VISITATION.
The present week has been one of meteorological phenomena rarely exampled in these temperate latitudes. Heat of remarkable fierceness made itself felt on Monday, the mercury rising to some degrees above 100 in the sun. For the purpose of hay harvest nothing could be more opportune, and all around Lancaster was a scene of busy hay-making, fortunately unaccompanied by the perils that awaited field operations the day after. Tuesday was the hottest day perhaps ever remembered here. An unclouded sun shot down its burning rays with intensity proper to our Indian climate, but altogether unexampled in these parts, rendering out-of-door labour an affair of absolute danger, as may be seen by the various items of intelligence to be found in our local columns, relating the many deaths from sun-stroke in the hay field. The oppressive heat continued until about four o'clock in the afternoon, when some friendly, but (as it afterwards proved) ominous, cloud came up from the west, and interposed a grateful shade for all. These clouds gradually increased their area, and by seven o'clock the whole south and south-western horizon loomed portentiously. A thunder-storm was evidently near, and very soon the familiar distant growl made itself heard. Lightning flashed at intervals, which gradually became shorter and shorter, till the electric display became all but incessant. The thunder was also barely intermittent, but it was never very near; so that the wondrous electric phenomena witnessed on this memorable occasion could be contemplated without fear of serious consequences. A glorious sight it truly was, but one that admits of no verbal description. The best evidence of its extraordinary character was to be had in the next morning's expressions of wonder and admiration to be heard on all sides in the course of ordinary conversation. The simple truth is that from about seven o'clock till ten, the long evening of a summer day was kept ablaze by incessant lightning flashes, some forked, some of the other kind, and occasionally both kinds intermingling, and when night at last closed in there was no darkness, all space being filled with the glory of this most remarkable visitation. It was near midnight ere the last of the retiring storm was seen in faint flashes "few and far between". Very little rain fell.