Chinook wind

“ A chinook wind came, and after [Pg 121] blowing for two nights and a day, had melted the snow to such an extent that the only traces of it to be found was where it had drifted into an abandoned badger or coyote den and escaped the warm breath of the chinook. There being no frost in the ground the moisture created by the melting snow sank deep into the soil and was stored away for future use. The sun, as it rose higher with each lengthening day, dispensed its increasing warmth, thereby reviving the earlier varieties of plant life with startling rapidity. ”

“ He began to melt Glacier. Glacier could only fight him with hail. Then Chinook Wind came back again, warm and steady and strong. Glacier retreated up the mountain side, leaving his wife behind.
Chinook’s daughter at once stepped into the canoe with her brother and his friends, and they paddled again down to Lillooet Lake. Then her brother turned around and said:
“Henceforth, in this country, it shall be cold and icy only for a few months each year. Then Chinook Wind will come and drive away the cold and melt the ice as we have done. The journey we have made this year shall be made every year.” ”

“ Chinook wind.The Chinook wind, which springs up in winter and melts the snow on the plateau, and to some extent in the mountains, is simply a southerly wind, such as is common in the Mississippi Valley and even on the Atlantic seaboard. ”

“ In Montana, Idaho and Alberta, the Chinook wind is far-reaching in its climatic effects. Both grazing and wheat-growing are made possible in regions that otherwise would be unproductive. The Chinook wind does not differ from the Foehn wind of Europe with which it is classed. In each case moist air drawn into a cyclone and pushed over a range, descends on the other side as a warm, dry wind. ”

“ Thanks to the wind, it usually happens that the falling snow is blown off the ridges as fast as it falls, leaving the grass sufficiently uncovered for the cattle to feed upon it. If the snow-fall is universal, but not more than a few inches in depth, the cattle paw through it here and there, and eke out a subsistence, on quarter rations it may be, until a friendly chinook wind sets in from the southwest and dissolves the snow as if by magic in a few hours’ time. ”

“ No man of the Northwest Provinces is unacquainted with this wind. It is prayed for in the spring because its breath melts the drifts swiftly, but it is hated to death by the traveler caught far from his cabin on snowshoes. The wind was the far-famed Chinook, the southeast gale that softens the snow as a child's breath melts the frost on a window pane.
It did not occur to Bill to turn back. Already he was nearly halfway to his destination. The food supplies had to be secured, sooner or later; and when the Chinook comes no man knows when it will go away. ”

“ A popular term in the Northwest is the word “Chinook.” We find, for example, the “Chinook” wind, the “Chinook” jargon, and “Chinook” salmon. “Chinook” is also applied by Indians and whites to the type of hull just described, and appears in that sense in the works of Swan and Boas. The term, bearing in mind, of course, that it is used in a general sense and is not necessarily to be associated with the Chinook tribe proper, living at the mouth of the Columbia, is distinctive, and has the advantage of usage behind it. Locally, on Puget sound, the model goes commonly by this name. ”

“ In the Rocky Mountains it is called the Chinook Wind. It is caused by moisture-laden air being drawn over a high mountain so quickly that the heat liberated in condensation does not have time to escape by radiation. The air cools by expansion as it ascends on the west side of the mountain, but it gains this all back by compression as it descends, and it has added to its temperature much of the heat of condensation. It is dry and greedily evaporates snow from the ground in winter, clearing off a deep covering within a few hours. ”

“ Then came the chinook, the warm south wind, which eats away the accumulated snow of months in as many days; and the great white banks first grew porous, and then slowly sank away, while the water ran in streams along the streets, or lingered in still pools far under the unbroken crust, waiting to drench the unwary passerby who should venture to set foot upon their treacherous covering.
It was the afternoon before Easter, and Louise Everett was just preparing to start for the chapel, to help try the vestments on the boys of the new choir. ”

“ Injun said nothing, but his face showed that he knew all about the Chinook wind.
"Well," continued Bill, addressing Whitey, "it's a warm wind thet's liable to come any time durin' the winter months; but it usually comes along 'bout February er March. The snow all melts an' the sun shines an' the grass begins to sprout an' the stock commences to feed an' wander away from the home corrals. Now this here Mister Chinook Wind'd be a wonderful thing if he was on the level—which he ain't. Not by no means! He's a shore-enough villain, an' could play the villain's part in any story an' live up to it! ”

“ In the west the climate is generally delightful, it being there greatly affected by the warm, dry “Chinook” wind which blows from the Pacific Ocean; to some extent the wind modifies the temperature nearly to the eastern border. It is the prevailing wind of winter in the mountains and in consequence the periods of cold, though often severe, are short. In the east the winters are often long and very cold, and the summers dry and hot. The mean annual temperature ranges from 37° F. in the north-east to 47° in the sheltered valleys among the mountains. ”

“ That mysterious warm-air current known as the Chinook wind steals through the depressions of the Rocky Mountains, at certain seasons of the year, from the mild surface of the Pacific, and tempers the severity of the winters in some portions of Montana, Wyoming, and the great West to a degree that renders them milder than many places farther south. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Snow and cold sometimes combine to do their worst. The snow covers everything deeply; [Pg 269] then follows an unbroken period of extreme cold; the Ice King is again enthroned; the snow fiendishly refuses to melt, and lies for weeks; the endurance of most wild folk becomes exhausted, and birds, herds, and wolves perish. Similar calamities used occasionally to afflict our primitive ancestors.
Over the vast Northwest a feature of the climate is the winter-annihilating Chinook wind. This occasionally saves the people of the wilds when other relief is impossible. ”

“ It was surely some desperate business indeed that sent them out into the face of that cutting wind which made even these hardy riders, burned hard and dry by scorching suns and biting blizzards, wince and shelter their faces with their gauntleted hands.
“Deuce of a wind, this!” said the Superintendent.
“It is the raw southwester that gets to the bone,” replied Inspector Dickson. “This will blow up a chinook before night.” ”

“ The snowy earth is quickly transformed by this warm, dry wind. In a few hours conditions become summer-like. Fortunately, the Chinook often follows a blizzard. Many a time at the eleventh hour it has dramatically saved the waiting, suffering birds and rescued the snow-buried and starving folk of the wilds. ”

“ The comparatively mild climate, which, as the report shows, they in reality enjoy, is said to be due to the proximity of large bodies of water such as the Great Slave and Great Bear lakes and to the chinook wind, the warm current of air that blows across the Rocky Mountains from the Pacific. ”

“ Banks of heavy clouds settled low over the Rocky Mountains, with another great bank higher up. In the west the sky became as black as ink and the color of indigo at the zenith. The wind went down and there came a strange stillness.
Suddenly, from out of the west I heard a dull roar, like the roll of distant thunder. “Listen!” cried the scout. “The Chinook! At last! Good-Old-Man comes from the mountains to run out over the plains.”
I looked towards the Rockies and saw dense clouds of snow [152] swept into the air by the force of a mighty wind. ”

“ The chinook winds are the counterpart of the foehn winds of Switzerland, and are explained on the principle that descending air is made more dense by the increased pressure to which it is subjected, and its temperature correspondingly raised, its capacity for moisture being at the same time increased on account of its rise in temperature. ”

“ Then come the rains, and within a few days the tender leaves of the wheat appear. By the time the first flurries of snow fill the air, the shoots, toughened and multiplied into bunches, have set their roots firmly in the earth. Serious damage occurs only when intense cold turns the earth to flint before snow has fallen, or when a cold snap follows upon a midwinter chinook that has swept the snow from the fields. These chinook winds may be expected every winter throughout the Inland Empire. For days the country will be held in the iron grip of cold ”

“ I saw several bands on my way from Dunvegan and all were very fat, notwithstanding that the cold winter weather had set in a month before, and the snow had been a foot deep for ten or twelve days. ‘Chinook’ winds occasionally visit this part of the country and carry the snow off; here also they blow from the southwest. The approach of one is known some little time before it arrives by the roar it makes. Many people in the country call them the ‘high-winds’ they blow so strongly. They often visit Lesser Slave lake. ”

“ For this and other reasons precipitation increases with elevation, at least until an altitude of many 184 thousands of feet is reached, and the mountains are cooler and more humid than the adjacent valleys. The air-currents on passing over a mountain range and descending are warmed by compression, and having lost a part and in many observed instances a large percentage of the moisture they previously contained, become warm, drying winds. The chinook winds, as they are termed in America, are marked examples of the influence exerted by mountains on climatic conditions. ”

“ Of local use; the Chinook ALKI being more common.
~Wind~, or ~Win~, n. English, idem. Wind. The winds are often known by the country from which they blow; as, for instance, on the Columbia, an easterly is a Walla-walla wind; at the mouth of the river, a southerly is a Tilamooks wind, &c. Breath. Ex. Halo wind, out of breath; dead.
Y. ~Yah'-hul~, n. Chinook, YAKHUL; EUEKHOL. A name. Not in general use.
~Yáh-ka~, or ~Yok'-ka~, pron. Chinook, YÁKA. He; his; him; she; it, &c.
~Yah'-kis-ilt'h~, adj. Chinook, YAKISILT'H. Sharp. Mr. Anderson gives as the original, "cutting." ”

“ It may come from the west, the southwest, or the northwest. Its eastward sweep sometimes carries it into Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas, but it most frequently floods and favors the Canadian plains, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado. It may come gently and remain as a moderate breeze [Pg 73] or it may appear violently and blow a gale. Its duration is from a few hours to several days.
There are numerous instances on record of a Chinook greatly raising the temperature, removing several inches of snow, and drying the earth in an unbelievably short time. ”

“ She had lingered in the doorway for a moment to watch her brothers, who had gone on before her, laughing and shouting as they floundered along, now walking a few steps on top of the snow, now suddenly sinking down, up to the waist, as they chanced to find a spot where the chinook had done more rapid work. As she looked after them, she saw, crossing the road, one of the stray cows that wandered about the town. ”

“ All that day the chinook blew, working its magic upon the land. When day broke again with a clearing sky, and the sun peered between the cloud rifts, his beams fell upon vast areas of brown and green, where but forty-eight hours gone there was the cold revelry of frost sprites upon far-flung fields of snow. Patches of earth steamed wherever a hillside lay bare to the sun. From some mysterious distance a lone crow winged his way, and, perching on a near-by tree-top, cawed raucous greeting.
Hazel cleared away the breakfast things, and stood looking out the kitchen window. ”

“ He went mentally over the argument again, and from that drifted to a scene he had witnessed in that same basin, one day—but that was in the winter. Dirty gray snow drifts, where a chinook had cut them, and icy side hills made the place still drearier. ”

“ Through three mountain-passes the Chinook drifts in, tempering everything it touches and making it possible for Indians and pack-train men to winter their horses here without any trouble on the naturally-cured grasses. ”

“ On the instant people looked out, fearing the sting of the cold. They felt, instead, a warm Chinook breeze! And they sprang out into it, unbelieving, preparing to shiver, but crinkling comfortably, instead, feeling like purring cats. The storm had gone by in its blizzard, zero wrath, leaving a sweet scent like roses and sharp colors of the bitter cold, changing and softening as the day waxed clear and warm. ”

“ THE CHINOOKS. Inhabiting the lower parts of the Columbia, are a small tribe, and correctly come under the name of Flat Heads, as they are almost the only people who strictly adhere to the custom of squeezing and flattening the head. Plate 209, is the portrait of a Chinook boy, of fifteen or eighteen years of age, on whose head that frightful operation has never been performed. And in plate 210, will be seen the portrait of a Chinook woman, with her child in her arms, her own head flattened, and the infant undergoing the process of flattening ”