THE WEATHER

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12596, 5 November 1926, Page 4

THE WEATHER

SUMMARY FOR OCTOBER Mr D. C. Bates, Director of the Government Meteorological Survey Dopartment, reports:— The weather of October was remarkably wet, both in the amount of precipitation and the number of days, except in Poverty and Hawke’s Bay districts and in Westland. 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 tho 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. Chir observer at Titrakina (near Marten) states that “this was the most destructive frost in respect to gardens that he have experienced during the past twenty years, coming as it did when trees and shrubs had just butst into leaf and flower. Trees, twenty vo thirty feet, high, were stripped bare.” From the 9th to the 12th rainfall was remarkably heavy in the basin of the Waikato river, 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 manv people tried to account for the preceding weather by reference to these phenomena; but there does not eo far appear to be any scientific relationship useful to the meteorologist. An extensivo westerly disturbance held sway during the last week of tho month, but waa complicated by a welldefined cyclonic system which invaded the larger area of low pressure. The centre of this storm passed through Cook Strait on the 2Sth. 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 sourse of the Buller river. Sunshine Was below the average for the month. Barometric pressure wa» everywhere below the mean for th« month, and was only above the normal about tho 23rd and 24th. The returns so far show a diffcrWce in temperature —the North Island being somewhat warmer, and the South Island rather cooler, than usual, at this titme of the year