SNOW IN WELLINGTON

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1930, Page 7

SNOW IN WELLINGTON

i LIGHTNING KILLS HORSE. WELLINGTON, July 25. The fine and pleasant weather with a light northerly wind enjoyed in Wellington yesterday gave no indication of the sudden wintry change that later took place. The early part of the evening was comparatively mild, but at about 8.30 a southerly gale sprang up. Conditions rapidly became very boisterous, and with the storm was considerable lightning and. .thunder. Squalls of rain and hail /frequently swept the city and suburbs'. " These rough conditions continued all night, and at 8.30 a.m. to-day there was a light fall of snow. Snow, was in evidence this morning on tjie'OrongoOrongos, and in patches on the hills on both sides of the Hutt Valle'y. The last time snow.fell in the city was in the spring of 1926, when there werb light falls both in September and October. Previous snowfalls in the city have been in April, 1924, September, 1919, and July, 1918. On other occasions snow has fallen on the surrounding hills without any./ actually falling at the Observatory. ' Oil the eastern hills of the Hutt Valley, the snow is lying at a lower level than for many years, while the OrottgoOrongos across the harbour presented a magnificent sight before clouds covered them at midday. Last night’s squalls produced in all TO points of rain,

The wind at Kelburn reached s maximum force of 53 miles an hour. Two gusts of this strength were recorded, one at 8.45 p.m. and another at 8.55 p.m. At llongotai there were frequent gusts of oyer GO miles an hour. The (full force of last night’s gale was felt by the small steamer Tees, which was moored to the Petonc wharf, which is exposed to the south. The night was spent in fear that slit might be driven on the beach. . A young man named Nicholson, son of a farmer at Koro Koro, was driving a horse and cart up the Koro Korc road, which was exposed to the full fury of the southerly, when the first flash of lightning last evening made him pause and consider whether h< should turn hack. Deciding to go on. he had reached the bend overlooking the Petonc Woollen Mills, when a second flash stopped the horse, and, he said for a fraction of a second played round the horse’s hoofs, and then struck it dead.