Wild hailstorms have caused havoc in the Riverina over the years. Photo: AI generated.
On 15 July 1902 an extraordinarily violent hailstorm took Wagga residents by surprise. So furious was the cascade of ice that it was widely reported that, at Tooyal to the town’s northwest, it was piled up five-feet deep in places where the hailstones drifted.
Sadly, no further details of this tremendous storm appear to have been published beyond a short telegram from the Reuters wire service, however, the Riverina is no stranger to falling ice.
In Wagga’s early years, it was reported that the town was lashed by a hailstorm in September 1897 that filled the rain gauge in minutes and left it standing in a pile of scattered hailstones.
“The rather novel sigh of snowballs was witnessed in many places,” reported the Wagga Wagga Advertiser.
“On the balcony of the Criterion Hotel an immense ball was made weighing about 50 lb. At North Wagga the hail was particularly heavy, and for some time the ground was as white as if snow had been falling.”
In November 1914, Coolamon was ravaged by a 20-minute downpour that peppered the town with stones the size of chook eggs and left everything drenched.
According to the Ballarat Star, the storm “broke windows, pierced iron roofs, ripped trees of foliage, and flooded every house in the town”.
“The low-lying country was also flooded. When the storm ceased the town was white and a thick mist rose from the melting hailstones”.
Nearby at Wagga “huge blocks of ice fell” with one “miniature iceberg” measuring four feet long and three feet wide found floating in a dam.
Telephone lines between Wagga and Coolamon were destroyed, sheep drowned, fences were washed away and a passenger train was pummeled as it encountered the storm front at Shepherd’s Siding.
“Nearly every window was smashed by the hail and the carriages were flooded,” declared the Geelong Advertiser.
“When the train arrived at Wagga it presented an amazing sight. The carriages were battered and covered with melting ice, from which the water was pouring in streams. Lumps of ice as large as teacups fell in the engine and cabin, and one made a hole through the hat of the fireman.”
A few years later in 1931, the Daily Advertiser reported the “heaviest storm on record” ripped through the Riverina and “hailstones resembling large blocks of jagged ice stripped limbs off fruit trees and killed birds and rabbits. Several motorists had the hoods of their cars perforated by the hail”.
This ferocious event left many ducking for cover but failed to dent the enthusiasm of 1000 Riverina residents who assembled at Tocumwal to demand tax relief for primary producers.
Not only were they undeterred by the violent “act of God” that sent them indoors, but they threatened the secession of the Riverina from the Commonwealth if their demands were not met.
Wild weather for wild times!
