STORMY WEATHER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3084, 15 May 1917, Page 4

STORMY WEATHER

FLOODS IN HAWKE'S BAY AND WAIRARAPA.

Yesterday was a dreary, chilly, drizzling day in Wellington and round about. Tho official report from tha Meteorological Officer states that considerable rainfall has been experienced all over the North Island, and in the north-eastern districts of the South. Island. Easterly and southerly winds, varying from strong to gale, fiuve predominated. The forecast warns .the public to expect high southerly winds, veering to the west, with a temporary rise in the barometer in tho north, bub a further fall in the south. The present unsettled state of the weather is expected to continue, with heavy rain and flooded rivers in inany parts of the country, arid snow on the higher levels. The rains of Sunday and yesterday caused the Hutt River to rise considerably.' In parts the stream was a wide expanse of yellow water spreading over shingle beds that are usually dry. Residents of tlie Upper Hutb Valley explain that the unusual amount of water in the river is due to the fact that in south-easterly and easterly rain, the fall is equally heavy in each, of the river's three watersheds. Iα northerly, westerly, or 'southerly weather only one or other' of these valleys receives copious-downpours, and the river's rise is not abnormal. _ On Monday morning a high tide assisted in making the river spread in its lower reaches, by retarding the- outflow at' the mouth.