The Melbourne Leader, P.26 November 15th 1902.

' From the accounts to hand it would seem that Wednesday, in its way, was perhaps one of the very worst days experienced in the State since first any record or scientific notice has been taken of our weather. From all parts of the State the same tale is coming in; a tale of a 'Black Wednesday', full of gales, fires, storms, darkness and disaster.

....At Boort, in addition to a dust storm of unheard of fierceness, great balls of fire fell in the paddocks and on the streets, throwing up showers of sparks as they struck the earth. At Wycheproof "the whole air seemed on fire" and people were terrified thinking that the "end of the world" was at hand. It grew very dark, and lanterns had to be used and the wind blew so fiercely that timbers, hoardings and bows of trees were "wafted through the air like feathers." At Allendale a house was set on fire and destroyed by the fireballs. At Sea Lake the Presbyterian Church was so badly injured by the wind that it will have to be pulled down.

From Chiltern comes a sensational message, that huge fire balls burst on the poppet heads of the New Barambogie mine, and set fire to them, while others set fire to the timber of the shaft and had to be extinguished at great risk. Bush fires are reported in every direction, no doubt caused by the fire balls. At Deniliquin "red flames" were seen in the air and the fire balls destroyed a stable. At Numurkah a house was apparently destroyed through the same agency to "a loud roaring noise" ; and indeed if our weather does not "reform and economise" it will be safer to go to the wars than live in the country .

The report of our Boort correspondent that during the storm on Wednesday balls of fire fell in the street and sparks were distinctly seen where the balls came in contact with the earth, was brought under the notice of Mr. Baracchi on Thursday. He explained that "fireballs" are in reality forms of electrical discharge known scientifically "Globular Lightning", a rare phenomenon which has not yet been explained. Globular Lightning he said, usually manifests itself as a luminous sphere, astronomical text books stating that the globes are of a diameter varying from a few inches to even two or three feet. It moves very slowly, and remains visible for several seconds or sometimes minutes, generally at last exploding with great violence. In the first two particulars it contrasts very strongly with ordinary lightning. Arago, in his Meteorological Essays, mentions an instance which occurred in Milan in 1841, when one of these globes moved along a street so slowly that spectators walked after it to watch it. The narrator saw it from a window, and then ran downstairs and saw it for three minutes before it struck a cross on a church steeple and disappeared. Again, it is recorded that a Madame Espert, of Paris, saw a ball or globe of fire descend from the sky. It was very like a moon "when it appears augmented in size." While she was watching it "with a terrible explosion it burst asunder, and there darted from it ten or twelve zig-zag lightnings, which shot forth in all directions, one of these struck a neighbouring house where it made a whole in the wall as a cannon ball might have done. "The event lasted about a minute ".

Globular Lightning has been seen and recorded on several other occasions, so that its occurrence is well established, although some physicists deny the possibility of its existence. Mr. Baracchi added that the condition of the atmosphere all over the State on Wednesday was highly favourable for the occurrence of electrical phenomena such as that described '.

Chapter 5. Fort refers to the 1902 Fireball Storms in relation to global and regional weather and geophysical events of the time. Fort speculates on the unaccountable volumes of smoke and dust 'from Hong Kong to Philippines to Australia' .

Link to edited and annotated version - http://www.resologist.net/lo305.htm

Francois Arago, Director of Paris Observatory. (b.1786, d.1853)

(Sydney Daily Telegraph, 14 Nov. 1902.)

" Globular lightnings of which I have cited so many examples, and which are so remarkable, first for the slowness and uncertainty of their movements, and next for the extent of the damage they occasion in exploding, appear to me at present one of the most inexplicable problems within the range of physics. These balls or globes of fire seem to be agglomerations of ponderable substances. How are such agglomerations formed ? "

The five years preceding Federation had been intermittently dry over most of the country. Very dry conditions set in across eastern Australia during the spring of 1901, and became entrenched over the following months. As the drought worsened, enormous sheep and cattle losses were reported from Queensland, and many rivers dried up. The Darling River at Bourke virtually ran dry, while Murray River towns such as Mildura, Balranald and Deniliquin—at that time dependent on the river for transport—suffered badly. The Australian wheat crop was all but lost. Rain in December 1902 brought temporary relief, with a more substantial break in autumn 1903. The long drought and its severe climax in 1902 had devastated stock numbers, and began focusing attention on planning for irrigation, especially in the three States through which the Murray River flows.

The Great Weather and Climate Events of the Twentieth Century

http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/1610.html