Warning
This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.
Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.
Hail is most frequent in the south-west, where it is reported on about 20 days a year, but for the greater part of the country it occurs on about five days a year or less. Most of the hailstones are small, but occasionally large stones cause local damage to glasshouses and to orchards and market gardens, chiefly in Canterbury and Hawke's Bay.