Note 137 — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
A comparison of tropical hurricanes with earthquakes is interesting. Taking all the hurricanes recorded in August, September, and October, from 1880 to 1899, and the corresponding earthquakes in Milne's catalogue, the correlation coefficient between hurricanes and earthquakes is +0.236, with a probable error of ±0.082, the month being used as the unit. This is not a large correlation, yet when it is remembered that the hurricanes represent only a small part of the atmospheric disturbances in any given month, it suggests that with fuller data the correlation might be large.