SUDDEN STORM

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 674, 28 May 1929, Page 10

SUDDEN STORM

FALL OF JAGGED HAIL AUCKLAND CITY ESCAPES With large jagged hailstones falling and forming an eerie accompaniment to the roar of thunder and the flicker or lightning from an inky sky, the residents of Titirangi spent an uncomfortable few minutes early yesterday afternoon. The stones were about 2]>in long by 2in wide, with spikes about half an inch long, and people caught in the storm had to find shelter speedily to save themselves bodily injury. While this disturbance seemed confined to the Titirangi neighbourhood on land —no rain falling at Avondale, and rain but no hail at New Lynn—the steamer Sussex, coming to Auckland from Calcutta, ran into the storm just outside the Hauraki Gulf, which leads to the supposition that the hail was sweeping in a belt across the country in a south-easterly direction. ON THE SUSSEX The storjn was the first which the Sussex struck on her journey, and for from five to ten minutes the passengers and crew experienced intense cold. The disturbance had a peculiar beginning at Titirangi, and the thunderclouds could be seen from Auckland massed above the Waitakeres in a grim pall. It seemed as if Auckland would be visited with a severe thunder storm, but the threat was not fulfilled. At 1.15 p.m. Titirangi had the prelude—a downpour of rain and hail, the hailstones being twice their normal size. The deluge lasted for about a quarter of an hour, the spoutings on the houses overflowing and the roads becoming temporarj* watercourses. EARTH POUNDED Then for five minutes the earth was pounded with the jagged ice-lumps, and the disturbance passed. For half an hour thunder growled deeply over the Manuka u Harbour, and the wind made a weird rushing sound. In Auckland, rain fell in the early part of the afternoon, and in Remuera. Newmarket and Parnell there was a brief storm, accompanied by strong gusts of wind.