Hail storms can cause billions of dollars' worth of damage, but until now scientists have known little about the precise mass and shape of hail. A study has found that hailstones that are not perfectly spherical can sometimes travel faster and hit objects with greater force than spherical hailstones, potentially causing severe damage to homes and cars (pictured).
Andrew Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and his colleagues measured nearly 2,300 hailstones that fell across the US Great Plains between 2012 and 2014. Most hailstones were smaller than 3 centimetres in diameter, but those that were bigger tended to be more lopsided than the smaller ones. Calculations suggest that the non-spherical hailstones occasionally hit objects with greater force than would be expected if they were round.
The findings could help to improve weather and hail-damage predictions, the authors say.
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.org/xqq (2014)
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Lopsided hail hits harder. Nature 516, 290 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/516290c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/516290c
