HEAVY RAINFALL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 13, 20 May 1913, Page 5

HEAVY RAINFALL.

f RECORD FIGURES

The bottom must have fallen out of the clouds above Stratford yesterday afternoon shortly after 4 o’clock, as the town was treated to some exceedingly heavy showers. The raingauge at the High School showed ! a total rainfall of 3.4 inches in twentyfour hours, which is a record for the instrument. Earlier in the day the •weather instruments .at the school had predicted something out of the ordinary, the barometer falling from 29.2 to 28.5 in four hours. During the heaviest rain the hydrometer showed a difference of only half a degree between -the dry and the wet bulb, the average difference being about four degrees. Only on one previous occa-| sion has there been more moisture re-1 corded in the air since the instruments j were installed. A good deal of dam-; age was done about the school, and in one of the lavatories the water’ broke through the roof and fell in a, regular downpour. A number of business places in the! city likewise failed to escape scath- 1 less. In one clothing establishment the staff had to don stock oilskins and transfer goods to a place of safety, and were in the midst of the work when a water pipe on the roof burst, and the downpour in the shop became a. minor repetition of what was occurring outside. In another case, the table in a well-known billiard saloon was swamped, while the floor of a third establishment was turned into a miniature lake. It is reported that a local seedsman lost anything up to £IOO through his stock of seeds being affected by the rain. In the Borough, with the exception, perhaps, of one or two blocked culverts for a time, the thoroughfares were quite clear. The amount and size of the shingle washed into the channels was a subject of remark by many L Papers- by,