Prepare to run for cover as the hail thunders down
MORE thunderstorms are on the horizon for the coming days. I have seen plenty of dramatic photos and videos from the past week where it appears as if a brief tear has occurred in the fabric of normal life to reveal an altogether more violent world.
Sadly, though, when a storm whipped up over my house on Wednesday evening I somehow managed to sleep right through it. I heard neighbours chatting about it in the greengrocer’s the next morning, though. Sounded a whopper.
One factor of some of the storms has been hailstones. Some may wonder how hailstones can even be produced in this soupy humid heat but they are in fact inherently a summer phenomenon. Hail forms high in the cold upper regions of cumulonimbus clouds where it is always below freezing, regardless of the season. The hailstones fall out of the sky frozen and only melt later on.
The potential of summer storms to pelt down hail has always been a menace, threatening harvests. In the 18th century across Europe some supposedly tried to ward off hail by firing cannon into clouds and ringing church bells.
Britain’s heaviest hailstone landed with a thud on Horsham, West Sussex, on Sept 5 1958. It weighed 190g (6.7oz) and was 6.35cm (2.5in) in diameter.
The West Sussex County Times ran a special two-page feature on the carnage caused by the storm the following day.
“The storm hit as suddenly as a blow from an axe,” wrote the hapless correspondent who was dispatched into the eye of the storm – as I would no doubt be today. “Within a few minutes the air seemed to become a solid mass of rain, hailstones and crunching wind.” He later reported seeing a piece of paper blowing down the street, which turned out to be a sheet of corrugated iron.
Who knows what drama lies in wait next week. But when the sky boils over, best all the same to reach for a tin hat.