GALE & RAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1938, Page 8

GALE & RAIN

CANTERBURY’S WEEKEND WEATHER MINOR FLOODING REPORTED. SETBACK IN WHEAT SOWING. (By Telegraph—Press Association). CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. A severe south-west gale swept Can terbury during the weekend. Heavy and persistent rain fell from Saturday evening onwards, accompanied by strong winds, but died down this morning. Many districts reported that low-ly-ing areas were covered with surface flooding, but although the rivers were running bank high in some places, no serious flood damage was reported. All parts of the province reported heavy rain through the weekend. Actually some rain would have been welcomed by farmers, but the amount desired was far exceeded in most districts. The fall had been preceded by a long spell of dry weather.

It was one of the nest late autumns for farm w.ork for a number of years, enabling a heavy late sowing of wheat. This sowing, however, will be seriously interrupted by the rain of the last two days, and unfortunately bad weather much earlier in the year had left much leeway to be made up by farmers in planting their crops. Much lowlying, heavy land, which was to have been planted wheat, was flooded by the fall of rain.