View source for U.S. Weather Bureau Office at Little Rock

The '''U.S. Weather Bureau Office at Little Rock''' opened on July 1, 1879. During a devastating storm which struck the city's downtown on [[Little Rock Tornado - October 2, 1894|October 2, 1894]] the office recorded the nation's first reliable measurement of barometric pressure change from a direct tornado strike. The funnel of the cyclone may have passed directly over the local U.S. Weather Bureau office occupied by [[George S. Harkness]] at 8:28 PM. Harkness recorded a 0.38 inch pressure drop on his Richards barograph machine.

==References==

*"Cyclone at Little Rock; The State Penitentiary and Insane Asylum Wrecked," ''New York Times,'' October 3, 1894.
*"Cyclone in Arkansas; It Destroys Much Property and Many Lives are Lost," ''Aspen Weekly Times (Col.),'' October 6, 1894.
*Michele G. Melaragno, ''Severe Storm Engineering for Structural Design'' (Taylor & Francis, 1995), 126.
*"Three Dead, Seven Missing; Besides Thirty-Five Injured at Little Rock, Ark.," ''New York Times,'' October 3, 1894.
*"Wrecked by a Tornado; The Business Part of Little Rock Devastated," ''Cranbury Press (N.J.),'' October 12, 1894.

==External links==

[[Category:Natural Disasters]]
[[Category:Weather]]