This video clip of a sudden hailstorm in Novosibirsk, Russia, shows how the weather changed in a matter of a few minutes from bright sunshine to heavy storm. The Telegraph reports:
In a video uploaded to YouTube, a sunbather captured the transition from 41 degree (Centigrade - equivalent to 105.8° Fahrenheit) heat to a raging hail storm - all in a matter of minutes.
Some people can be seen screaming and running for the cover of beach umbrellas as the hail storm intensifies, while some chose to stay in the water and one brave person sheltered under their beach towel.
Two minutes in to the video, a girl can be heard saying: “If we’re going to die, I love you”.
Fortunately, it appears no one was injured despite the size of the hail stones and the lack of shelter. However local media have reported that the storm caused the deaths of two three-year-old twins when a tree collapsed on the tent there were in. Another four-year-old child who was sharing the tent is also in intensive care.
It certainly blows up out of nowhere in a matter of a couple of minutes.
I'm glad I wasn't there!
Peter
5 comments:
It doesn't take long... And that must have been a pretty good storm to throw hail that far!
Kinda like the weather one sees in Texas.
The values of the cars near by just took a literal hit..
When I lived in Illinois we'd have storms like that every couple of years.
Be hot and muggy, and then WHAM! Here comes the rain, lightning, thunder, and HAIL!
To make a thunderstorm that can make those kinds of hails stones, you just need low level heat, moisture, a favorable vertical temperature profile, and some kind of trigger to start the vertical motion, like a front or an atmospheric wave.
In places like the US South during the summer, the ground temperature, just by itself, can be that trigger.
Once it starts, it isn't going to stop until the vertical mixing ruins the temperature profile or the outflow damps down the ground heat.
Daytime storms don't worry me so much, but a nighttime thunderstorm that runs without the energy input from the sun? That's a town-eater.
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