DULL WEATHER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 8 October 1928, Page 9

DULL WEATHER.

UNUSUAL ATMOSPHERIC | CONDITIONS. AND SOME THEORIES. Tlio month of September, with its sudden electrical storms, produced, something unusual in the nature of spring weather, but with the ushering in of October conditions became more settled and everbody has felt safe in piedicting a good summer season. Today, however, October entered the lists of the months competing to produce the strangest conditions. During the morning the brilliantly sunny sky became heavily overcast aajd a thunderstorm seemed imminent, but, though the clouds seemed to grow denser every moment, there was no outbreak of the threatened storm. When the time cam© for those engaged in Hawera shops and offices to leave for lunch there was a great run on the “office ■umbrella’.’ and keen competition set in among office' boys to secure the spare coat, which lies in a. covering of dust in most places of business.However, the anxious glances cast at the sky by those who scurried home minus the protection of either coat or umbrella, were not warranted, for the rain had still failed to materialise at d p.m. . Nevertheless, the conditions were still so unusual as to cause a good deal of comment, the light which struggled through the clouds appearing to cast a golden or brownish glow over .all objects. Even more interesting than 'the strange light and the peculiar “feel” of the atmosphere were the theories held locally regarding, the cause of the phenomenon; there was an especially good eiop of these theories produced within the “Star” office. The cable sub-editor was strongly ol the opinion that a volcano had erupted somewhere in the OPacific Ocean and that the steam was clouding the sun; a message received earlier in the day reporting that scoria and pumice had been sighted by a vessel in the Pacific lent colour to that story. Someone else declared that the dust storm which passed over Sydney yesterday had now reached New Zealand,. putting, up a record speed for Hi® course. Then it was mentioned in another quarter or the office that duet- had fallen on Invercargill, having been carried from some place unknown, and was due t° fall on Hawera at any moment. The last tlieoi-y propunded as the paper was going tQ' press was that put forward by the office pessimist, who uttered a" solemn warning that the “end of Hie world was coming.”