ABSTRACT
Gordon Manley’s work on the production of his famous series of monthly mean temperatures in central England from 1659 to 1973 has provided a landmark in the development of our knowledge of the past record of the climate. The Faeroe Islands lie in the midst of the broad channel between Europe and Iceland through which the main arm of the North Atlantic Drift normally passes in the present epoch on its way to the Arctic. Use has been made of the available barometric pressure measurements from past centuries to elucidate the characteristics of the wind circulation. So far, the investigation which has compiled analyses of 29 of the severest storms known to have occurred in the region from 1588 to 1981 supports the impression that several of the severest storms in the Little Ice Age period between the mid-16th and early 19th centuries exceeded the violence of any that have occurred since.
