ABNORMAL RAINFALL IN TARARUAS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 57, 30 November 1929, Page 10

ABNORMAL RAINFALL IN TARARUAS

HUTT RIVER IN SPATE The Water Board survey party encamped a few miles beyond Kaitoke have come in for a fair share of the recent rainy weather. There has been practically continuous rain in the high ground of the upper watershed of the Hutt for the last four days. During that time it was estimated by measurements in an isolated water tank that between three and four inches of rain had fallen.

Coupled to this abnormal rainfall there have been incessant thunderstorms. Two of these thunder showers, lasting barely an. hour. each,, contributed altogether two Inches of rain to the general total. The Pakuratahl River, which joins the Hutt River nearby, has been In full flood almost continuously for several days. This river rises and falls most abruptly, and at times was only a foot or two beneath a rickety suspension bridge, some 10 feet above the river bed, connecting the camp with the track to the main road.

So heavy has been the rainfall, it was possible during heavy cloudbursts actually to see the Hutt River rising in these parts. Only an hour or two after a severe thunderstorm on Thursday this river, generally only a few feet deep, rose no less than thirteen feet a mile 'or so below Kerekere creek. There were several slips on the other side of'the river to the track, and huge trees weighing many tons were carried like matchsticks for miles in the enoniious forces of the sudden spate. At the height of the spate an experienced engineer on the spot estimated that at least 80,000,000 gallons of water was surging downstream every hour. This represents an hourly flow of water considerably in excess of the dallv flow in times of drought. Fortunately the whole of this area is uninhabited. and no damage to property occurred.