There are hailstorms, and then there’s this hailstorm
Two animals were actually killed and people were injured in a hailstorm yesterday at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs:
Five injured people were taken to a hospital and nine more were treated on the scene and released, said Brian Vaughan, public information officer and fire captain for Colorado Springs Fire Department.
A 13-year-old caped vulture named Motswari was killed in the storm along with a 4-year-old Muscovy duck known as Daisy, Koch said. A third animal — a vulture — was initially reported dead, but later turned out to be severely injured.
The zoo is now closed, assessing the damage.
I was in a hailstorm the other day but I was sitting in a car. There were tornado warnings at the time—we have them now and then in New England. The hail was the size not of golfballs but of blueberries, and because my older car had been pock-marked from another hailstorm long ago I was worried more about my vehicle than anything else.
This Colorado storm must have been pretty frightening, though:
My husband just got a email from his secretary. They had a huge storm in her town just a bit north of here. The roof is off their house, the basement is flooded, and the garden is destroyed. I guess we will get more details tomorrow. Bad things happen. We can only do what we can to help and say some prayers.
Hi Neo,
I live less than a mile from the COS zoo — our house was devastated and both cars nearly destroyed. I couldn’t help but recall the plagues of Moses, particularly that of fire and hail.
Not being Biblical literate, I had to look it up:
“Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every person and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.”
Nice new website, btw.
In the over 28 years I lived in Colorado there were several hail storms of this magnitude. Fortunately, the area affected was usually relatively small.
My brother’s house and car were severely damaged by a storm like this one in 1976.
In 1986 my wife and I were caught out in such a storm while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. We were able to quickly find shelter under an overhanging rock. Even then, we had some bruises.
In 1961 a squadron mate in our Navy training squadron, VT-3, flew a T-28B into a thunderstorm with tennis ball sized hail. The airplane made it back to base but was a complete strike. Looked like someone had worked it over with a sledge hammer.
The thunderstorm is one of nature’s most potent forces. The ones that have the capacity to keep tossing the hailstones upward so they keep growing in size are relatively rare, but a real threat to anyone or thing caught out in them.
Some hail facts here: https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/hail/
Look up the 1995 Mayfest Storm in Fort Worth, Texas or the 2000 Tornado that hit the same area of downtown Ft Worth…apocalyptic I tells ya’!
“There were tornado warnings at the time—we have them now and then in New England.”
I’m not sure why this only just occurred to me: I never see reports of tornadoes anywhere but the USA. I see reports of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, tsunamis, hail storms and lightning strikes.
But I’ve never seen a report of a tornado. Are they somehow unique to the USA/North America? Is there something about our climate and geography that makes us more prone to them here?
Or do we just never hear reports of them from outside the States?
Fractal,
From a publication called Tornado Climatology:
“The United States experiences approximately 75 percent of the world’s known tornadoes and thus is notorious for its tornado climatology in terms of frequency, intensity, and destructive outbreak events. While it is appropriate to focus on tornadoes across the United States, it is important to recognize that tornadoes also happen in other countries of the world.”
You made me curious, so I looked it up.
We have an occasional tornado in Australia…and by occasional I mean rarely.
But they do happen.
Hail is extremely rare around here. I’m a bit surprised there wasn’t more destruction and injury.
Fractal, I think they call them tornados in the US and cyclones in other parts of the world.
We get hail storms now and then in the Mid-Atlantic states and they can shred trees in no time. Even small hail stones hurt when hit and can leave bruises.
I grew up in Denver. I remember coming down from the mountains on 285 from the Tiny Town area and see this ominous cloud over west Denver. It was unique in that the sun was illuminating it from the west and it was a green color. It was all the ice in the hailstones refracting the sunlight. As we returned to our house in Lakewood the trees were stripped and a two inch layer of hail made it look like December.
Colorado is more prone to hail as the front range and the near plains are conducive to T’storm development, AND since th base is already at 5,000 feet, those storms can easily top out at 45,000 ft. By the standard lapse rate of temperature, that means those tops are at maybe -50 degrees F…..extremely conducive to hail formation,and if the storm is intense enough, the many up and down cycles of the hailstone allows it to grow to large sizes.
physicsguy – small world; we are in Lakewood now!
Last May our parking lots looked like the one at the Zoo.
BTW, anyone in the area, once they reopen that is a Must See zoo.
Outstanding exhibits, especially the giraffe enclosure and the jewelled herpetarium.
Phillipa – I always thought Dorothy’s cyclone looked a lot like the tornadoes I grew up with in West Texas; interesting to see that kind of regional difference in names.
PS – your name suggests “Lymond Chronicles” to me; any connection?
Phillipa Crawford:
No, a cyclone is not another name for a tornado. The two are very different.
A cyclone is more like a type of hurricane. See this for a fuller discussion.
Hi Philippa
“Cyclone” is the Southern Hemisphere word for “hurricane” not tornado. Those (cyclones) we have regularly…one or two a year in Oz.
Roy,
Thanks! That was kind of you to look it up. Very interesting.