Abstract
A SEVERE thunderstorm passed over Woodlesford, six miles south-east of Leeds, between 3.10 and 4 p.m. this afternoon, proceeding from south-west to north-east. Flashes of lightning during that time were almost continuous. At 3.15 heavy rain began to fall, becoming so thick at 3.25 as to render objects a short distance away almost indistinct; at 3.30 this changed to hail, the stones during the worst period being generally irregular parallelepipeds of ice, with two edges of about one inch each, and the third of one-quarter of an inch. These blocks consisted of hard, colourless, transparent ice, surrounding a central, irregularly-shaped mass of opaque white, small air-bubbles of roughly ellipsoidal shape being ranged round this. The white nucleus was not quite so hard as the exterior transparent coating. The force of collision on the railway line was sufficient to make the masses bound to a vertical height of two or three feet. At 3.45 the hail had moderated, when a few light loose clouds were observed quickly passing from north-east to south-west, and thus directly opposite to the direction of the storm, and at a much lower level.
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WEBB, R. Large Hailstones. Nature 28, 226 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028226b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028226b0
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