A WET OCTOBER

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 110, 5 November 1926, Page 5

A WET OCTOBER

SUMMARY FOR THE MONTH.

Both in the amount of rain and in the number of days upon which rain fell, October was remarkable, states the Government Meteorologist in his monthly summary for the Dominion. Poverty Bay, Hawkes Bay, and Westland experienced more or less a normal rainfall during the month, but all other parts of the Dominion had a wet month. From the Ist to the 12th the weather was most unsettled, and rain was recorded every day in most parts of the Dominion, but heaviest in the North. On the 10th and 11th an ex-tropical disturbance passed over the North Island, and snow and hail fell on higher levels in the North, as well as in many places in the South Island. A wintry snap followed, and a sharp frost was experienced on the morning of the 13th. This did a considerable amount of damage to tender spring growth. An observer at Turakina (near Marton) states: "This was the most destructive frost in respect to gardens that we have experienced during the past 20 years, coming as it did when trees and shrubs had just burst into loaf and flower. Trees twenty to thirty feet high were stripped bare." From the 9th to the 12th the rainfall was remarkably heavy in the basin of tho Waikato Eiver, and the highest flood recorded for nineteen years continued for several days. There were magnetic storms about the middle of the month, associated with sunspots, and many people tried to account for the preceding weather by reference to these phenomena; but there does not so far appear to be any scientific relationship useful to the meteorologist. An extensive westerly disturbance hold sway during the last week of the month, but was complicated by a welldefined cyclonic system which invaded the larger area of low pressure. The centre of this storm passed througii Cook Strait on the 28th. There were some heavy rainfalls, accompanied by thunderstorms, in the South at the close of the month; and Westport experienced a flood on account of heavy rain and melting snows at the source of the Buller Eiver. Sunshine was below the average for the month. Barometric pressure was everywhere below the mean for tho month, and was only above the normal about the 23rd and 24th. The returns so far show a difference in temperature, the North Island being somewhat warmer and the South Isfand rather cooler than usual at this time of the year.