AsianScientist (Oct. 24, 2025) – On Could 8, 2020, hailstones bigger than golf balls rained down on Cabiao in Nueva Ecija, the biggest province and prime rice producer of the Central Luzon area of the Philippines. Measuring over 4 centimeters in diameter, they have been the most important hailstones ever recorded within the nation.
Thunderstorms are frequent throughout the nation, pushed by its tropical local weather, assorted terrain, and shifting wind patterns. Throughout the Southwest Monsoon season from June to August, moist and unstable air usually triggers frequent storms. Thunderstorm exercise peaks within the afternoon and in the course of the monsoon transition months – March to Could and October to November. But regardless of frequent storms, hail stays a uncommon and little-studied phenomenon, largely because of the absence of specialised remark methods.
To fill this data hole, Filipino researchers performed the primary complete evaluation of hail occurrences within the nation, protecting almost twenty years of knowledge from 2006 to 2024.
Their findings have been printed within the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.
For his or her analysis, the scientists utilized a various array of sources – instrument knowledge together with native governmental data, information retailers, and geotagged social media posts. This method was notably useful because of the restricted ground-based hail detection methods within the nation.
The examine discovered that hailstorms happen most frequently in the course of the dry months of March, April, and Could, when floor temperatures are at their peak and thunderstorms are extra doubtless. Moreover, most occasions occurred within the mid-to-late afternoon, the most well liked a part of the day.
The hyperlink between excessive temperatures and falling ice lies in an element known as Convective Obtainable Potential Vitality (CAPE), which measures how a lot vitality rising air can have. When CAPE is excessive, heat air rises quickly, carrying moisture into towering thunderclouds. Inside these clouds, highly effective updrafts carry water droplets into colder layers of the ambiance, the place they freeze and develop into hailstones.
Dry air within the mid-atmosphere also can assist hailstones attain the bottom. It enhances evaporative cooling, strengthening downdrafts and dashing their descent. As a result of they fall quicker, hailstones spend much less time in heat air and are much less prone to soften earlier than touchdown.
Whereas Luzon accounted for many reported hail occasions, bigger hailstones measuring three centimeters or extra have been extra usually noticed within the Visayas and Mindanao island teams.
The researchers recommend that weaker monsoon affect in these areas permits native storms to persist later into the yr. The examine additionally emphasised the significance of citizen science and public reporting in monitoring hailstorms and different extreme climate threats.
As local weather change will increase the probability of utmost climate, involving the general public in knowledge assortment could possibly be essential to enhancing early warning methods within the Philippines. The researchers additionally emphasised the necessity to strengthen the nation’s climate monitoring and forecasting networks.
“Most individuals are stunned when hail occurs as a result of it’s comparatively uncommon within the Philippines,” stated Lyndon Mark P. Olaguera, Assistant Professor, Division of Physics, Ateneo de Manila College, and senior writer of the examine.
“Many take images or movies and share them on-line. Some are scared because it’s uncommon, whereas others simply deal with it as a wierd form of rain. Individuals often clarify it as a part of sturdy thunderstorms, and a few interpret hail as a warning or signal of local weather change,” he added.
The researchers urged catastrophe preparedness applications to cowl not simply typhoons and floods, but in addition lesser-known threats resembling tornadoes, waterspouts, and hailstorms that may take communities without warning.
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Supply: Ateneo De Manila College: Picture: Eye Em/ Freepik
The examine will be discovered at Spatiotemporal Evaluation of Hail Occasions within the Philippines
Disclaimer: This text doesn’t essentially replicate the views of AsianScientist or its workers.
