Wednesday 10 September
2008, San José, Costa
Rica
No More Secrets With The
Press, Acting President
Promises
Legislators Resume
Work On Organized Crime Bill
Próspero Fernández
With Partial Closing Starting Tonight
No Mercy For Haiti In
World Cup Soccer Play
Snow In Costa Rica?
It Sure Looked Like It!
Canadian Police Donates
Body Armour
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Snow In Costa Rica?
It Sure Looked Like It!
Ok, so it wasn't snow,
as the area of Barrancas,
in El Guarco, Cartago,
was covered in white
from the accumulation of
"granizos" (hail) that
was part of yesterday's
weather in the Central
Valley.
"Run, pieces of ice are
falling!", were the
cries of neighbours as
hail the size of golf
balls fell on their
roofs.
"It was impressive, hail
fell with such a force
that it broke the tarp
covering the nurseries",
said a worker at the
Vivero Agritica in
describing the hail
storm.
The hail storm hit
suddenly the area at
about 11:30am following
clear skies and hot
temperatures. witnesses
said that the clouds
over the Vieja Metropoli
(old metropolis)
suddenly turned dark and
within minutes the hail
sent many seeking
shelter.
The storm continued with
an intense rain that the
Reventado river quickly
overflowed its banks
causing flooding of the
surrounding areas and
interrupted vehicular
traffic on the Taras
road, a major road used
to move between Cartago
and San José.
Fortunately there were
no reports of injuries
or property damage from
the hail storm.
Hail is a form of
precipitation which
consists of balls or
irregular lumps of ice
(hailstones). Hailstones
usually consist mostly
of water ice and measure
between 5 and 150
millimeters in diameter,
with the larger stones
coming from severe
thunderstorms.
Hail is only produced by
cumulonimbi
(thunderclouds), usually
at the front of the
storm system, and is
composed of transparent
ice or alternating
layers of transparent
and translucent ice at
least 1 mm thick.
Hail forms in storm
clouds when supercooled
water droplets freeze on
contact with
condensation nuclei,
such as dust. The
storm's updraft blows
the hailstones to the
upper part of the cloud.
The updraft dissipates
and the hailstones fall
down, back into the
updraft, and are lifted
up again. The hailstone
gains an ice layer and
grows increasingly
larger with each ascent.
Once a hailstone becomes
too heavy to be
supported by the storm's
updraft, it falls out of
the cloud.
In large hailstones,
latent heat released by
further freezing may
melt the outer shell of
the hailstone. The
hailstone then may
undergo 'wet growth',
where the liquid outer
shell collects other
smaller hailstones. |
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