PHENOMENAL STORM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 39, 15 January 1943, Page 5

PHENOMENAL STORM

REMARKABLE FALL OF ICE BOROUGH COUNTRYSIDE VISITATION Heralded by an unusual lightening display accompanied by thunder a phenomenal hail storm which had been threatening all the afternoon swept Whakatane about 6 p.m. last Wednesday afternoon. The storm which was preceded by a particularly hot muggy spell provided Borough residents with the most unique fall of hail within living memory. The hail fragments were actually large pie-ces of ice approximately one inch across though the larger ones actually measured one and three-quarter inches. The ice, which fell in every conceivable. shape came with a roar resembling a small arms i'usilade, and coated the corrugated iron roofs with a covering lesembling broken glass. Fortunately there was little Avind and no windows arc reported, broken, but cattle grazing in open, paddocks were stampeded, and many of them severely bruised. j The fall lasted approximately twelve minutes and was accompanied by heavy rain. People from the shelter of their homes noted, the | unusual spectacle of the hailstones bouncing like rubber balls cn the bitumenised roadway. Old residents declare that nothing even approaching a freak fall of this nature had occurred, at least within the past forty years. So much interest was evoked that many gathered the. stones and have preserved them in their refrigerators for 'later exhibition. Observers living near the waterfront report that the. hail storm was accompanied by a sulphurous mist which deposited particles of sand over a wide area.