"Martin Rowley" wrote in message
...

"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message

I imagine someone else will find a decent reference, but in
the absence of that, if I turn up anything relevant I'll let you know.

... many thanks. My interest is to make it clear on the FAQ page dealing
with 'singularities' over what period the analysis was made. Currently,
I have used the Meteorological Glossary entry which states ' ... over 50
years', but I'm now wondering if that is correct, or rather a gross
simplification.

In Gregory, Sir Richard, Weather Recurrences and Weather Cycles,
Presidential Address to the RMetSoc on 15 Jan 1929, we find, at
the conclusion of a review of Buchan's original paper:

"These nine periods were deduced from observations in Scotland
during a period of ten years in the middle of the nineteenth
century. In spite of this limitation, however, they have been
assumed by many newspaper correspondents to be equally valid
for the temperature of London in the twentieth century. Such an
assumption is quite unwarranted, and Buchan, if he were alive
to-day[sic], would be the first to reject it. No scientific evidence
has ever been adduced that cold or warm periods have any
tendency to occur in London on Buchan's dates."

The original reference is given as:
Edinburgh, J.Scot.Meteor.Soc., Vol 2, 1869, p.4

Philip Eden