Jamshedpur, Feb. 26 : Heavy rain accompanied by hailstones lashed the city on Tuesday afternoon. According to sources, some hailstones even weighed to 50 gram. It came as a surprise for many local residents as they claimed to have experienced hailstorm for the first time.
�We have never seen such rain during recent past. They were bigger in size and hard as well. We were frightened and took shelter wherever we found place,� said a local resident of Sakch. Sources said, rain accompanied with hailstones continued for nearly hour. There has been no report on any damage to property or casualty so far.
Indian Meteorological Department had warned of the strong likelihood of thunderstorm accompanied by hailstorm over a wide area of the country, including Jharkhand, over the next three days.
According to a release issued on Friday evening by Earth System Science Organisation that functions under the Union ministry of earth sciences, an active western disturbance that lay over central Afghanistan was likely to move towards northwest part of India and interact with low-level easterlies, causing heavy rainfall and thunderstorm accompanied by hailstorm over a range of areas within India, from Jammu to Jharkhand.
Currently, wheat, mustard, gram, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato and French beans are growing on fields, said an expert. “Hailstorm will put poor farmers in trouble,” he said. Earlier too, we have seen farmers weeping after their crops were pelted by hail.
People, who thought that it was time to bid adieu to sweaters and pullovers, were in for a shock when it turned chilly this evening. The hailstorm brought the city to a grinding halt with reports of water-logging and damage to property coming in from several areas.
The hailstorm continued for an hour and disrupted life. Windscreens of a number of cars, window-panes and asbestos sheets of several homes were damaged. A thin layer of ice covered the road and trees uprooted.
