HAIL WORSE THAN HURRICANES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 31

HAIL WORSE THAN HURRICANES

FAMOUS BURSTS OF ICE ARTILLERY

Hail is familiar to everybody, but the majority of us go through life without witnessing a really destructive hailstorm, says Calvin Frazer, writing In “Popular Mechanics.” Many such storms occur every year, but each is limited to a relatively small portion of the earth’s. surface. The severe hailstorm, like the tornado, is always small, but it represents such a concentration of fury that hail-storms levy a heavy toll on property. The average annual.damage in the United States is three or four times that done by tornadoes. itall losses on ■ ten agricultural' crops of the. country amount to 47,500,000 dollars in the average year. Last year there.were two hailstorms in the State of Kansas, each of which cost the farmers 3,000,000 dollars. Says Mr. Frazer: "The loss sustained by agriculture is only part of the annual hail bill, 1 In the old world some of the heaviest losses occur in vineyards, and on both sides of the. ocean,, greenhouse glass, comes in for an immense share of damage. Ordinary windows are sometimes broken on a large scale. In Vienna, Austria, an early morning hailstorm smashed more than a million windowpanes in the course of a few minutes. At Dallas, Texas, iu 1926, big hailstones riddled tbe tops of thousands of automobiles, shattered . windshields, and wrought damage totalling about 100.000, dollars to these vehicles. Tons of ice fell on streets and buildings during fifteen minutes, and in the business centre the stones attained the size of baseballs. The losses in the city and its vicinity were estimated at 2,000,000 dollars. ' “An unusually severe hailstorm swept a path five miles wide across part of Kansas, on June 4, 1927. Fields were left as bare as a highway. Trees were stripped of branches and leaves, and horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, rabbits, chickens, and wild birds were killed. Hailstones piled into drifts eight to fifteen feet deep, and many of these drifts remained for three days. “One hailstorm caused such widespread distress that it helped bring about a great social upheaval. Beginning in the centre of France, July 13, 1788, this storm crossed Belgium, and finally died out in Holland in the afternoon. No less than 1309 ■ communes in France suffered, and the total losses were estimated at 5,000,000 dollars an immense sum at that period. The disaster undoubtedly hastened the revolution. “The number of human beings killed or seriously injured by hail is insignificant. Why this should be so is a riiystery. It is not at all uncommon for hailstones weighing from one to several ounces to fall by the thousands or tens of thousands on inhabited areas. They smash skylights of heavy wire glass, o pieree window-panes with a clean round hole, like a bullet, and bury themselves a foot deep or more in soft earth. Why do not these missiles slay scores or hundreds of people 'every year? No satisfactory answer has yet been offered.

“The most fatal hailstorm of which we have an authentic record was one that occurred at Moradabad, India, May 1, 1888, which cost about 250 lives. Many of the victims were actually pounded to death by hailstones; but most of them were knocked down by hail and wind, buried under the drifts, and died of cold and exposure. Big hail scents to be more prevalent in India than in any other country. “At the village of Klausenburg, Roumiinia, on May 1. 1928. six children were killed and ten adults were badly injured by hail during the celebration of the May Day festival. On July 4of the present year two men and one woman were killed and . several persons were injured by hail in tbe suburbs Of Nuremberg, Bavaria. These events were quite exceptional, however, for In most years there are no deaths from bail in Europe, and apparently not more than two or three have been ret corded in the whole history of the United States.

“The maximum size attained by hailstones is a matter of great uncertainty. A new record of size for the United States is said to have been established at -Potter, Nebraska, on July 6, 1928, when among numerous hallstones ‘as large as grapefruit’ one was found to be seventeen inches in circumference and weighed one and a half pounds. At Cazorla, Spain, on June 15, 1829, houses were crushed under blocks of ice, some., of which are said to-have weighed four and a half pounds. In the summer of 1902, hailstones weighing ten pounds were reported by an English missionary to have fallen at Yuwu, Shansi Province, China. The missionary undoubtedly fourid such stones, but did they fall? Tbe fact that hailstones lying packed closely on the ground readily freeze together to form huge masses of ice is at the bottom of all tbe most remarkable hailstone stories not made put of ‘whole cloth.’ * “Not all particles of ice that fall from the sky are hail. True, hail occurs almost exclusively in connection with thunderstorms. A distinguishing feature is that it consists partly of lee and partly of suow. Large hailstones frequently show several alternate layers. The peculiar structure is explained by tbe fact that hail is formed in the turbulent region at the front of a thunderstorm, where it makes several journeys up and down between relatively cold and warm regions of the atmosphere before finally falling to earth. At high levels the incipient hailstones coated with snow, and at lower levels with rain, which changes to ice as the stone is again carried aloft.”