The essential difference between the eastern and western climate is terribly proved by the character and consequences of the great storm that has blockaded the New England and Middle States and Iowa. Comparisons between the dry and refined atmosphere of Minnesota and Dakota and the humid air of the sea board have related mostly to the effect upon health. It now appears that much more than the condition of the respiratory organs is involved in this peculiar superiority of the west as to climatic conditions. The blizzard, it will now be understood, knows no east and no west. Just as the fiction of an established cyclone belt has been dissipated by the appearance of these destructive storms in all portions of the country, so the fiction of a " blizzard area" must now be retired from duty. The severe winter storm, the combination of high winds, low temperature and blinding snow-fall which is implied in the term blizzard, is common to all northern latitudes. It is just as likely to strike New York as Bismarck. The difference lies in the modification of the storm by atmospheric humidity, which makes it infinitely less to be dreaded in the Northwest than in any other portion of the country. Clearly, the blizzard is an ugly customer, and he is no respecter of longitudes. But he reserves his deadliest terrors for the unhappy people who live where a moisture ladened atmosphere makes them the helpless victims of his cruelty.

April 19-There was one inch of snow at Clinton, and the Mississippi was thirteen feet above low water mark.

May 11-Too wet at Fort Madison, Marengo, Muscatine, Elkhart, Rolf, Lowden; raining for fourteen days. Victor, more rain in three weeks than for two years before. Oxford, thirteen days continuous rains. The ground was ready for corn, but little had been planted on account of rains.

May 13-Waterloo, severe frost, thermometer 26 degrees.

May 14-Boone, sharp frost, damaging vegetables and small fruits, but the grass and small grain crops were already assured in those places. Same date, was frost at Oskaloosa, Anita, Carson, Madrid, Sioux City, Council Bluffs and parts of southern Iowa. Fears were expressed that the frost would injure the small fruit, etc., but they were not realized, as the. facts further on abundantly show. It is a notable fact that these localities as above deprecated what was esteemed inordinate rains, even more than they did the drouth, and dust, and sunshine of the preceding three years. This frost of May 18th extended into northwestern Dakota, but was not a special element in the decrease of the wheat crop.

July: Warm, southerly winds and calm prevailing, rainfall normal and satisfactorily distributed. Mean temperature two degrees above normal. At the north, east and west, rainfall was generally in excess of three inches, the west averaged six; the east, seven; and the southeast, eight days of rain. The principal storm was on the fourth. It was a genuine squall, starting about noon in the northwest and reaching the Mississippi from Clinton to Lee counties about five o'clock. It appears to have been most severe in parts of Palo Alto, Kossuth and Hancock counties, where many buildings were destroyed or damaged; it was also severe, but not destructive, in Benton, Iowa and Johnson counties.

The most destructive hail storm visited Crystal and Grant townships of Tama county, and extended into Grundy county, on the 21st. On the same day, hail fell also in Bremer, Howard, Clayton and Clinton counties.

The distribution of heat and moisture has been very favorable to all crops, without interfering with farm work. This has been the most favorable July since 1880.

August: There was no frost. The first half of the month was generally rainy or showery, local rains occurring on each and every day somewhere in Iowa until the 16th. The last half of the month was fine and dry, very favorable to the ripening of corn, and for farm work and fairs. Hardly any rain fell during this part of the month in Iowa.

The total rainfall was normal for State, though is was unevenly distributed. The lowest amounts to only two inches, is from Waterloo; the highest at Corning, eight inches and a half. Nearly the entire south and, west received from four inches upward, while the northeast averaged about two inches and a half.

On the 10th a severe thunder storm extended over southwestern Iowa. Very heavy rains fell, lightning did considerable damage, and heavy hail fell in a strip from northwest to southeast of Nodaway township, in Adams county. Late on the 14th and in the early hour of the 15th a very intense thunder storm with heavy rains, extended over the southern part of central Iowa, from Cass to Henry county, being most severe in Jasper and Marion counties. Local floods did considerable damage to oats in shocks, and railroad tracks, and lightning destroyed some barns and stacks. .

The following note is added in connection with the above:

Cedar Rapids, August 17.-Reports from one hundred stations on the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern road in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota and Dakota, say that the small grain is all harvested and some of it threshed. Oats are very light in weight, yielding from twenty-five to forty bushels an acre. Of other small grain there is an average crop. Corn will yield anywhere from sixty to ninety bushels an acre if there are but three weeks more of warm weather.

September was fair, cold and dry; mean temperature 3.2 below normal. Since 1870, this month has been as cold or slightly colder in 1883, 1879, 1875, 1873, 1871. This year there were no great fluctuations in the temperature, and as a consequence no early destructive frosts.

The first frost occurred on the 12th in the northwest and on the 13th in the northeast. The second two cold days (17th and 18th) did not produce any frost, the sky being generally overcast. The third and most noted cold spell, being clear, was marked by moderate frost even to the southeastern part of the State, on the 28th, while the frost was more severe in the northern parts of Iowa. The growing and ripening seasons being very favorable in nearly all Iowa, and the first general frost date being late, no notable damage has been done to corn.

Rain has fallen on fourteen days, though in any given point rain fell on only four days in the west and seven days in the east.

The total amount of rainfall was comparatively light. Less than one inch .fell on the Missouri slope and in central Iowa as far east as Tama county. Over two inches fell locally in Kossuth county and from Muscatine and Johnson county to Jackson county. In the balance of the State the rainfall ranges between one and two inches. The most extended or general rains fell on the 7th, 10th, 14th and 21st, and single rains amounting to one inch fell only in the regions above specified having a total rainfall exceeding two inches. There were no destructive storms.

October was cool and dry; mean-temperature 1.3 below normal; rain fell in the west on three days and in the east five days.

The total amount of precipitation was less than one inch in the south, west and northwest; it exceeded one inch in the southwest, center and east of Iowa. In the territory extending from Buchanan and Linn to Jackson counties, to total rainfall was greatest, exceeding two inches.

The first snow showed itself on the 19th in northeastern Iowa; and on the 21st throughout all Iowa excepting on the extreme east and southeast. But it was so extremely light in most places that it only showed itself while falling, and did not cover the ground; especially on the 21st it was generally associated with rain.

A thunder storm was quite extensive on the 17th and 18th, and over eastern Iowa on the 26th. Light hail was associated with these storms in a few places. No destructive winds reported.

November was mild, fair and generally dry; mean temperature, three degrees above normal.

Only on three days did any notable disturbances occur. On the 9th the southern half of Iowa had moderate rainfall, turning into light snow or sleet, and being the northern limit of the great Kansas snow storm of that date. On the 5th a thunder storm with but light rains prevailed in eastern Iowa.

The most notable storm occurred on the first. The temperature of the day was twenty-two degrees above normal, corresponding to the normal temperature of the first week of September. A light thunder storm with little rain extended over Iowa in the morning, and was followed by a much more intense one in the evening. In the valley of the Iowa and Cedar rivers, this storm was most intense, and a straight blow traveled down this valley from seven to ten in the evening, accompanied with heavy rain and lightning. The rain increased from about half an inch in southern Mitchell county to nearly three inches at Iowa City. The wind was most intense between Waterloo and Vinton, destroying considerable town and farm property at La Porte City and Mt. Auburn. It was not a tornado or cyclone, but a straight blow. Hail and pouring rain fell only in connection with this storm just below the region of greatest intensity of the wind.

The total rainfall is almost entirely due to the storms of the first and ninth.

The month, while too dry in the northwest, has been most beneficial in general, in extending the grazing season and greatly favoring the husking of the immense corn crop of Iowa.

December was fair, dry and extraordinarily warm; the mean temperature was seven and a half degrees above normal. The month was only as warm 1875 and warmer 1877 and 1881. During the preceding fifty years there have been only few Decembers without the thermometer falling to zero-1881, 1877, 1858, 1846. Light snow fell on the 12th, and there was a general rain on the 15th and 16th. It brought more than one inch of water over the eastern half of the State; the total precipitation exceeded two inches.

The most notable item was the warmth of 25th and 26th. The mean temperature of 23rd was thirty degrees above normal. It was mid-October at the close of December. Cattle found pasture free from snow, and plowing was done. There is but little shore ice at Keokuk. River closed at Burlington.

January 5-Prof. Hinrich says: The record of the past fifty years warrant the statement that January and February, 1889, will be relatively warm.

Eighteen hundred and eighty eight went out with the beauty and perfectness that has marked the whole year in the Mississippi valley. The day was an ideal close of a year that has been simply perfect. The sun went all day through calm, cloudless skies. There was just enough tonic of cold in the air to make known that it was winter. The 305 days from the first of March to December 31st to the midnight made as perfect a season as anyone will ever live in. We may never see that many consecutive days perfecter than they; we will probably never see their match. Apart from the charm of the season the year was a good one. The world over, probably the earth and all human kind never lived a calmer, happier, more prosperous year since time began than 1888.