TERRIFIC HAILSTORM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2054, 4 February 1889, Page 3

TERRIFIC HAILSTORM.

During tbe recent stormi In New South Wales, hailstones m big as teacups are said to have fallen. A resident of BowraviUe, about 20 miles from Nambacoa Heads, and 267 miles north of Sydney, writing to a relative st New York give s the following aooonnt of the storm on the Nambuoo* River ; — " I will try to doioribe to yon a remarkable storm, or hurricane If yon like, that visited ns last Fildiff about midday. No one up here has ever seen a storm to equal It, and I certainly have never Been anything like It, especially In the Immeme i f za of the hailstones, or more properly, blooks of ice, that came with the storm. The storm came from the south-west, and for about a quarter of aa hour before the sky was Inensely bluok In that quarter. The first notloe of Us approach was the roaring of the wind, which we coald hear for ful y ten mlnutei before It reached ns m its fury. The force of tbe wind was terrific while it listed, which fortunately ft as not more than twenty-five minutes. Huge trees were snapped off or torn up by the roots and carried bodily to some distance. The thunder and lightning lasted the whole ovenlng; in* deed, there seemed to be a succession of Violent tbunderttorms ; tbe lightning was , grand and the thunderclaps wonld frighten anyone, but the ohief features of the storm were the Immense hailstones. At Bowra we got a great many larger than a large hen egg, and next door to as they went dean through the iron roof into the kltohen. la another part of the district they were muoh larger and almost tquare m shape—some of them bb big ss tea-cups. Mr Maokay'i house m that part is juit riddled with holea. I need hardly say that Buoh a storm has done great damage to tbe crops ; the oorn was just tasselllng, and now much of It Is levelled to the ground. The roads are blooked with fallen trees fn all dlrcotlons. A man might just as well take his chance on a battlefield as be m tbe forest here while moh a storm la raging and large trees and limbs falling around him. Since this storm we have had s> thunderstorm every day,"