A STORM AT TUAPEKA.

Evening Star, Issue 3698, 29 December 1874, Page 3

A STORM AT TUAPEKA.

On a thunderstorm burst over the Tuapeka district, and spread over a somewhat extensive range. We (‘ Times’) have heard of it as somewhat heavy on the other side of Beaumont, and have in part witnessed its ravages from Tuapeka Mouth to Greenfield Station. Between four and five in the afternoon the sky became black as ink, but was brightened up with frequent flashes of lightning. The thunder became loud and deafening. It rained literally in torrents, and was accompanied with hail; so large were the stones that they averaged about half-an-inch in diameter. The hail did an immense damage to the gardens. But the storm fell with special fury over the sawmill and on the hill above, so much so that for a short time Mr Pearce’s garden was a flowing river. The workmen in the mill-shed were soon up to the knees, and the water rose up to the bars of the furnace. It floated away the sawn timber out of the racks, and even tore up part of the tramway, and did no small amount of damage. During the storm a flash of lightning struck a post at the rear of Miss M'Swiney’s residence at Wetherstones, splitting the post in thousands of pieces, and scattering the fragments in all directions. The rails adjacent to the post were displaced several feet. Two eye-witnesses state that that theearth around the post was driven upwards, as if by a whirlwind, thus testifying to the violence of the shock. The Crookburn and other creeks rose to a great height, and altogether it was one of those storms that called for the remark—“l never saw the like of it before.”