Severe Weather in the South.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 108, 16 July 1895, Page 2

Severe Weather in the South.

LYTTELTON HARBOR FROZEN. Christchurch, July 11. Snow began to fall in the city yesterday, and in a couple of hours there were three inches on the ground. In the northern district the fall is heavier.

The principal thoroughfares and crossings were cleared by unemployed labor to-day. The running of trains has been very much interfered with. A very severe frost occurred last night. The Lyttelton harbor was frozen last night, an occurrence unprecedented in the history of the port. Near Glrdstone Pier the ice was half an inch in thickness. The body of the man found iu the snow iu Clarence Valley has not yet been identified. A constable, who went to recover the body, bad a very rough experience, having to walk many miles through three feet of snow. Reports from Banks Peninsula state that most of the roads are blocked by landslips caused by the recent heavy rains.

Last night a slip of extraordinary dimensions at Pigeon Bay started at six o’clock, and rushed into the sea with such force as to raise a tremendous wave which swept across Pigeon Bay (from Holmes Bay side) and swamped the road, the distance being half a mile.

A number of families in the Pigeon Bay locality are leaving their homes, fearing further slips, the hill being dangerously fissured. News from the country districts states that the fall of snow has been very heavy. The West Coast road has been blocked by previous falls, and Foot Porter’s Pass is the furthest point to which vehicles can be taken ; from thence to Craig Selbourne the snow varies in depth from 3ft Gin to 15ft. * A narrow track has been cut for pack horses, but it is feared that it will be filled again by this morning’s snow. The mortality among the sheep in this district is very heavy, and it is feared 20 per cent of those got are very weak, and have been subsisting by eating the wool off the old dead ones. Reefton, July 11.

The snow fall in Big River and the Memjigs district has been very heavy, and interfering with mining operations.