Hailstorm hits Pangasinan
Was it a curse?
Binmaley residents wondered if the hailstorm, corn kernel-sized pebbles of ice, that fell on the town and over parts of the province Tuesday evening for 10 minutes was a sign of a curse, particularly when it resulted in power outage in Binmaley for several hours.
The hailstorm accompanied by lightning and thunder, which is unusual in this part of the country, caused near panic among Binmaley’s residents until Greg de Vera, chief of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services (PAGASA) station here, assured them that it was not a curse but a natural occurrence and there was nothing to worry about.
In an interview with The PUNCH, De Vera explained that there is a tendency to develop cumulonimbus clouds, the coldest and thickest cloud, when temperature is at its hottest.
Once this type of cloud — which is composed of water droplets, super cooled droplets and ice crystals, snowflakes, snow pellets, ice pellets or hail stones —reaches freezing point, it develops into ice, he added.
De Vera also noted that in the Philippines, being located in a tropical region, the size of hailstorms can only be expected to be small unlike in the polar region where the size can develop to as large as a baseball ball.
He acknowledged that the hailstorm was unusual as this normally occurs in the country in April when temperature is at its hottest.
Tuesday’s temperature was 34 degrees Celsius.
“This is a normal occurrence,” he said. #
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