What is hail and how does it form inside a cloud?

Arab weather - hail is considered one of the forms of precipitation that accompanies air depressions, cold air fronts and cases of atmospheric instability, similar to snow that requires the presence of polar air and multiple and complex factors, as the most hail times are in warm periods such as the summer months and during periods The transition between seasons in which air masses of different characteristics frequently converge.

What is hail and how does it form inside a cloud?

Hail can be defined as irregular balls of frozen water that form inside cumulus clouds ( specifically cumulonimbus ) and thunderstorms. The hailstones fall on the ground in different sizes and may be large sizes and high density, which causes great material damage in some cases. The diameter of a hail ranges from a few millimeters to several centimeters, and hailstones consist of layers of ice about 1 mm thick, and the size of a giant hail can reach about 20-40 cm or more.

How does hail form in cumulus?

For hail to form within cumulus clouds, several factors are needed, including the confluence of two air masses with different characteristics, one cold and the other warm, or in depressions and cold air fronts, or through the formation of convective clouds, where the clouds grow in all layers of the atmosphere and reach high levels and become cumulus with A high vertical stretch, when the temperature at that level is below freezing.

When there are rising air currents (lift energy), they prevent the water droplets in the clouds from descending to the surface of the earth and raise them to the upper atmosphere, where the temperature is less than zero Celsius, and then the water droplets begin to freeze (turning from liquid to solid) forming Small ice crystals try to descend to the surface of the earth, but because of their small size and the ability of the rising air currents to carry them, they are lifted again to the upper atmosphere, when they are covered with new layers of ice. It may be very dense in some cases, and the rain usually lasts a few minutes to fifteen minutes, and it may form a layer of several centimeters thick on the ground.

What is a hail storm?

It is a type of storm in which small or large balls of hail fall, and usually most hailstones do not exceed the size of a pea, but the large ones can reach the size of golf balls, tennis balls, or even grapefruits or paradise lemons. Large hail towards Earth at a speed of about 160 km/h.

Weird facts about cold pills

The largest hailstone fell in Coffeeville, Kansas, USA, in 1970, with a circumference of 44 cm and a weight of 907 grams. tropical; Because the cold melts before reaching the ground.

Cold storms recorded their name in history

• He broke the record in terms of the size of hail in the United States in 2010, when a hail size of 875 grams and a diameter of about 20 cm was recorded in a town on July 23, 2010 and caused major damage to property and cut off electricity to the town
• The April 1982 storm that struck northern Qassim and caused great losses in agricultural crops and broken axial machine guns. In the same year and in the month of May, the Saudi town of Al-Hanakiya witnessed frightening hail that caused the smashing of windows and some cars and umbrellas, as well as the north of Qassim in November 1985 A huge hailstorm broke plantings and some trees and smashed windows.
• A violent hail storm hit (north of Riyadh 30 km) and headed to King Khalid International Airport and caused damage to the glass windows and also affected the Al-Thumama area, northeast of Riyadh, causing car windows to be smashed, and the same event was repeated the following year, but this time over the capital Riyadh and on a larger scale, where a very huge hail storm formed on the afternoon of Saturday, March 23, 1996, and caused hail to fall in large sizes, especially on the north and east of the capital, and it paralyzed movement and the fall of some umbrellas and shattered the windows of houses and cars and greatly affected the structures of cars and it was a storm that did not Forget.

Damage caused by cold

Usually, hailstones cause damage, the effect of which varies according to the sizes of the fallen grains, as hail sometimes causes significant damage, including physical damage to car structures and glass, as well as aircraft bodies, in addition to the ability of hail to damage plantations, trees and small-sized plants.

In rare cases, massive hailstones are known to cause concussions or fatal shock to the head, hailstorms have been the cause of costly and fatal events throughout history, one of the earliest known accidents occurred around the 9th century in Roopkund, Uttarakhand, India, where 200 to 600 died Bedouins from hail injuries the size of cricket balls.

The hail may contribute to torrential rains, floods and mudslides within the steep terrain areas after thawing in cases of heavy accumulation.