SKY ABLAZE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 48, 26 February 1935, Page 5

SKY ABLAZE.

STORM LAST NIGHT. PROLONGED INTENSITY. EXTRAORDINARY LIGHTNING. Following the heavy rain in the suburbs, and the electrical storm over the whole city yesterday afternoon, there was an intense thunderstorm last night culminating about 2 o'clock this morning. Actually it was a continuation of the disturbance during the day, for thunder muttered to the north-west all the afternoon. Towards 5 o'clock it became worse, and seemed to advance nearer the city. The clear sky to the east became blackly overcast, and by 6.30 it was raining hard, and thundering as well. Subsequently the rain eased, and the thunder seemed to pass further off. Those who fear thunder and lightning — and there are a surprising number, adults as well as children—-hoped it had finally passed; but the hope was in vain, because while in the early part of the evening the mutterings were afar off, towards midnight the storm returned. Most Intense Storm. It was as severe as any storm in the city for years. The thunder was not like ordinary thunder, a dull rumble. The claps last night were more like detonations, sharp and clear-cut, and very near overhead. They seemed to travel with extraordinary speed. One Mount Eden resident said that a sharp peal of thunder in the western sky was followed by rain which was curiously local, there being a heavy downpour in a street or two, whereas, in other etreets, only a few drops fell. Probably , the next thunder clap would lie directly overhead, and a succeeding one would be well over in the eastern sky.

A feature of the storm was the singular play of the lightning. It never sensed, so that a great part of the heavens was continuously laced with irregular threads of light. The light-

ning was forked. A shaft of lighi* would dart from a fissure in the blackness, the sky would explode into deafening sound, and the light would wriggle in snakelike shapes across the piled clouds. Another flash would be different. The lightning would be angular and jagged, like gigantic broken bottles. The sky would be turned into an enormous chart, on which the lines were plotted with fire, .and the background, black as night'. For those who do not fear thunder and lightning, forked lightning at night is a sight of awesome beauty. Most rain relL about midnight, and for about half an hour after. After 2 o'clock the thunder eased, and the lightning passed further off.