SEVERE HAILSTORM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1699, 16 February 1888, Page 4

SEVERE HAILSTORM.

An Oamaru paper reports a singular hailstorm that occurred in the Otepopo district' A j few days ago, sweeping across ;the property of Messrs A. and G. Paterson. The storm, from the description given, must have been one of the-severest and most destructive ever known in the district. Mr Paterson says that about 6.80 p.m. he observed what he supposed to be a rain or hail squall pass over a portion of his property. The following morning at 10 o’clock he visited the place, and to his astonishment found that a strip of oats, 400 yards wide and half a mile long, had been so completely threshed out that it would not pay for the twine to bind it. The ground was covered to a depth of two inches with a solid- coating of ice, and in some parts in the water-runs on the sidlings, where the hail or lumps of ice had rolled, there were solid beds of ice 3ft thick. Mr Paterson states that he has no idea as to what size the hailstones may have been, but judging by appearance he would say they must have been good sized lumps of ice. The quantity which fell must have been immense, when it is considered that after sixteen hours it was still 2in. in depth on the level ground. The loss to Messrs Paterson must have been somewhat heavy. It was fortunate that the storm passed out to sea instead of sweeping along the coast, taking the crops in its way. Had the same amount of ice fallen in town, the damage to glass would have been rather startling, aud probably even the iron roofs would have fared badly.