STORMS IN THE RYLSTONE DISTRICT 1900

At Lue Homestead on Monday 360 points of rain fell in about 30 minutes. Fences were washed away, and crops, garden, and a large dam were destroyed. Mr Dowling estimates the damage in the immediate vicinity of the Homestead at £200.

The recent rains were ver patchy throughout the district. Camboon estimates its fall at 7 inches.

Some portions of Bylong Valley received 7 to 8 inches fall, while at Growee up to Tuesday morning, the fall had only reached about 25 points.

Mr W C Corliss JP, of Bandanora, near Capertee, was in town yesterday. He estimates the fall at Capertee at 3 inches. 

The dam at Lue Station has withstood all attacks for about 18 years but Monday’s storm made a Cudgegong River rushing through it.

On Wednesday the Camboon Lane, so a Camboon resident informs us, was flooded, a stream heavier than the Cudgegong River rushing through it. 

The storm near Lue on Monday must have been a waterspout. It cut a track from Lue township nearly to Tong Bong, carrying away all fences it met with in its onward course. 

The thunder and lightning during the storm on Wednesday morning was terrific. Nothing to equal it can be remembered in Rylstone. 

At Camboon the storm burst in all its fury, immense hailstones cutting the corn to ribbons. During the storm a tree near the residence of Mr D Riches was struck by lightning and smashed to pieces. 

In January 1897, the local rainfall was 169 points; in January 1898, 558 points; in January 1899, 285 points; and so far for January, 1900, 403 points have been reported. 

(Western Express, 12 January 1900, p. 9).