Hailstorms have historically demonstrated their capacity to wreak havoc, transcending borders and challenging the resilience of both man-made structures and the natural world.
A notable instance documented by the Liverpool Mercury in 1894 highlights the sheer force and destruction wrought by these icy projectiles.
Contrary to the milder impacts typically observed in Great Britain, regions across the globe have witnessed hailstones causing substantial damage, including the penetration of corrugated iron roofs.
Large Hailstones
Hailstones have broken windows and have been known also to pierce corrugated iron, though not in Great Britain, where, as a general thing, the force as well as the size of the stones is not sufficient to occasion such wholesale and serious damage, says the Liverpool Mercury.
On one occasion, G.J. Symonds, F.R.S., who is a meteorological authority of very high standing, pooh-hooed a report from India relative to the piercing of an iron roof by hailstones.
Now, quite recently, there was presented to the Royal Society of New South Wales, by C. H. Russell, an indisputable account of a hailstorm in the Narrabri district, which occasioned this very phenomenon.
On the morning after the storm the manager at one of the meteorological stations found 19 sheep lying dead, in addition to birds, kangaroo rats and crowds of other creatures – all of them killed by the hailstones, which broke all the windows exposed to them, dented the galvanized iron roofing from end to end, and cut many of the sheets right through.
In one sheet no less than 60 holes were found, and in another no less than 30.
France, singular to relate, has been very unfortunate in the matter of damaging hailstorms. One, which fell in the neighborhood of Angouleme, wounded several persons severely, and killed a child near Barbezieux; injured the cattle, sheep, and pigs; entirely stripped the trees of their leaves; cut the vines into pieces and crushed the crops.
The whole district was deprived of game, and the effects of the storm were visible five years afterward.
Another which fell some years earlier, has the distinction of being the most remarkable hailstorm on record. It was divided into two distinct bands – the western one 420 miles long and 10 miles broad, and the eastern one over 500 miles long, but only 5 miles broad.
It is estimated that 28,000,000 tons of ice fell, or about one pound to the square foot on an average. Some of the stones were half a pound each in weight.
Source: Iowa County democrat. (Mineral Point, Wis.), 29 March 1894.
