By KPC Reporter
Residents of parts of Nyamira County were left in shock after a heavy downpour accompanied with hailstones Thursday evening.
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The hailstones damaged crops including tea, which is the main cash crop in the county.
It also destroyed maize and nappier grass in various villages within Borabu and Kitutu Masaba Constituencies.
The intense downpour lasted about one hour, according to villagers.
“I have seen hailstones before but today’s were more and bigger,” Joseph Mokaya, a resident of Metamaywa village said.
The stones heaped themselves in homesteads, fields and by the roadside in the affected villages.
Residents said in the area experiences hailstones more than in the past.
No loss of life or injury was reported by press time, although according to Mokaya, the stones were big enough to injure unsheltered domestic animals and human beings.
“It might take longer for the damaged crops particularly tea to rejuvenate,” Mokaya said.
According to meteorologists, hailstones are formed when raindrops are carried upward by thunderstorm updrafts into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere and freeze.
“Hailstones then grow by colliding with liquid water drops that freeze onto the hailstone’s surface,” says America based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Severe Storms Laboratory report.
It adds that if water freezes instantaneously when colliding with the hailstone, cloudy ice will form as air bubbles and be trapped in the newly formed ice.
“However, if the water freezes slowly, the air bubbles can escape and the new ice will be clear,” it adds.
The hail falls when the thunderstorm’s updraft can no longer support the weight of the hailstone, which can occur if the stone becomes large enough or the updraft weakens.
