Sharp, big, deadly and weighs a ton

Severe hails lash the upper Deccan region, recovering an oddly interesting hail the size of 3.4 kilograms, today in 1939 from Hyderabad

Freak snowfall in Andhra Pradesh (comparable event); Source: Deccan Chronicle

The Northern peninsula of the Deccan is an unusual place - while agricultural productivity increases as one goes from west to east, these regions, bound by the states of Karnataka, eastern Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and a bit of Madhya Pradesh, all these regions receive one of the oddest calamities of nature: Hail.

Hailstorms batter these places, and before one understands the true nature of the damage, one must recall what hail is made of. As cooled droplets of water move through the clouds, they come into contact with particles of soot or dust or salt - thus instantly crystallizing it - creating small ice pellets.

These are not by themselves deadly, for they are very small. But caught in a storm, these pellets race back up into the sky, and thus come in contact with more and more droplets of water, and as this happens again and again, they become bigger and bigger as droplets keep crystallizing on their side - these can turn out what becomes hail, from merely the size of a pebble to a gigantic ball - enough to kill anyone who is in its path.

Coming back to the region in the Deccan, for it has been receiving these deadly hailstorms ever since it was practically existing. On the 11th of March 1939, something even more unusual happened. According to later reports and sightings, around the outskirts of Hyderabad was recovered a hailstone weighing 7 and a half pounds - more than three kilos, in weight. Such a weight falling from above would definitely be enough to kill anybody, including humans and animals.

Studies have since then been carried out of this region’s weather interactions with the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal to generate such destructive hailstorms. While the British report in Hyderabad might be empty, it is not difficult to see that it notified a trend - severe hail was noted even in 2014.