JUST like the tsunami has been known to be destructive but never taken seriously to warrant the installation of early warning systems in the Indian Ocean, thunderstorms and hailstorms have never been taken seriously either by the authorities in Africa’s Great Lakes region in general and the areas around Lake Victoria in particular.
Tsunami is a Japanese word, which means tidal waves. They are known as harbours’ tides because they move horizontally along the seabed and only rise vertically as they hit the shoreline, unlike the conventional common sea tide waves that are seen on the surface.
This characteristic of tsunami was one of the main causes of death to people who had rushed to the seashore to find out why the water had rapidly receded many metres, only to be caught unawares by returning waves that had risen again several metres as they approached the shoreline at very high speeds.
It was a sheer act of God for survivors to have managed to be thrown to safer grounds. Year after year, hailstorms have caused havoc to crops and other properties in the Great Lakes region. Had statistics been correctly gathered and kept by the relevant authorities, the red flags would have been rising to attract remedial action.
Like in the tsunami case, some of the hailstorms will be larger and more destructive. Sometimes they comprise large hailstones, and some have been reported to be as large as an elephant, while others are merely 25 feet in diameter.
However, the largest hailstorm reported by Weather Bureau officials was one that fell at Potter, Nebraska, US which reportedly killed people. In northern India in 1888, hailstones as large as cricket balls killed 246 people as well as 1,600 sheep and goats.
Another storm in Western Hunan province of China killed 200 people and injured thousands in 1932.
On May 13, 1939, at Lubbock, Texas, a farmer died of injuries when he was caught in an open field during a severe hailstorm.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and Care International have been providing some early warning information to the Kenya government through the vulnerability analysis and mapping (VAM) programme. But the warnings have been downplayed although their lethal results are known.
One of the surprises of a hot afternoon thunderstorm is the almost magical transformation of the landscape from green icy white with the onset of a hailstorm. Hailstorms may occur if convective activity and sufficient moisture are present and if the freezing level in the skies is relatively low.
The first sign that a hailstorm may be coming is growing whitening among the shafts of rain. A hail shaft is a column of ball falling from a single thunderstorm cell. The ground area swept by the hail shaft is known as a hail streak, which is typically produced by a hail cell moving along at 30-45 miles per hour, although speeds of 60 miles per hour have been recorded.
Hail streaks, which are highly mobile, cover areas varying from 100 feet to 2 miles wide and about 5 miles long. A hailstorm can be the most damaging part of a thunderstorm, inflicting injury on humans and animals and destroying crops and property.
The writer is a retired civil servant.