GALE BLOWS OUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1932, Page 3

GALE BLOWS OUT.

SUDDEN WEATHER CHANGE. SUN SHINES AGAIN. PALL OF SNOW ON , EGMONT. Piping up with redoubled energy last night, the squally weather blew itself out, and this morning Auckland almost basked in sunshine again—truly remarkably mild for this time of the year, less than a month off the shortest day. Women negotiating Grafton Bridge yesterday afternoon actually held on to one another for support during the fierce gusts that swept over that exposed structure; this morning one could have walked across it with a lighted candle and arrived on the other side with the wick still burning. Evidently the wonderfully fine summer and autumn • are going to die hard. ° During the height of the gale last night a building ill Princes Street West, on the Onehunga waterfront, was blown down. It was used latterly as a stable and hayloft, but was not in use when demolished. Up in the Waikato the eoutli-wcsterly blew with gale force, and the weather was bitterly cold. Mr. F. J. Cleave, a carrier, was driving his lorry along a side road at Tamahere when a big bluegum uprooted by the storm fell across the road. The trunk just missed the lorry, but the branches swept some cream cans on to the road and damaged some of the woodwork of the lorry. For a -while the road was blocked by the fallen tree. Snow fell heavily on Mount Egmont, and at the North Egmont Hostel there was a fall of about a foot. On some of the country roads the hail banked up until it resembled a fall of snow. The steamer Port Dunedin, due at Auckland to-morrow, is still at Wanganui. as the boisterous weather delayed loading. The Golden Bear, bound from Los Angeles to Auckland, wirelessed that sho is meeting heavy weather, but she will arrive to-morrow afternoon.