Home Page Science Frontiers
ONLINE

No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994

Issue Contents




Other pages

.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

 

Flat-plate hail

Typical flat-plate hailston
Fig 1. A typical flat-plate hailstone from the May 17, 1993 fall.
May 17, 1993. Berkshire, England.

"As the cold front passed over Woodlands St. Mary, west Berkshire (183 meters above sea-level), at 1555 GMT, there commenced a 3-minute duration fall of unusual, flat-plate hailstones, measuring some 12 mm wide by 2 mm thick. These plates were smooth and glassy in appearance (indicating conditions of 'wet' growth) but not perfectly round, taking on an eccentric, wheel-like structure; with a 'hub' and four-spoke formation of transparent ice, having opaque areas in between."

(Anonymous; "Flat-Plate Hail -- 17 May 1993," Weather, 48:433, 1993.)

Comment. Other instances of hail platelets and small ice sheets may be found under GWP4 in Tornados, Dark Days. Ordering information here.

The spoke-like structure mentioned above, however, is most unusual. It is difficult to imagine a meteorological process that could create millions of hailstones -- all with this strange geometry.

From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994. © 1994-2000 William R. Corliss

Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Reviewed in:

Quotes

  • "Before opening the book, I set certain standards that a volume which treads into dangerous grounds grounds like this must meet. The author scrupulously met, or even exceeded those standards. Each phenomenon is exhaustively documented, with references to scientific journals [..] and extensive quotations" -- "Book Review: The moon and planets: a catalog of astronomical anomalies", The Sourcebook Project, 1985., Corliss, W. R., Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada>, Vol. 81, no. 1 (1987), p. 24., 02/1987