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Updated January 22nd, 2023 at 17:43 IST

Europe sees record-breaking hailstorms as severe weather disrupts life & damages houses

Amid winter storms, 8,224 large hail have been reported in 2022 which exceeded 2021’s record as per nearly 2,800 reports, said European Severe Storms Laboratory

Reported by: Saumya Joshi
Europe Hail storm
Image: @essl_ecss/Twitter | Image:self
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Amid winter storms, 8,224 large hail have been reported in 2022 which exceeded 2021’s record by nearly 2,800 reports, said the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL), reported New York Post. The United States tally has been dominated by reports of frozen precipitation from across Europe. US' Oklahoma and Kansas have been left behind in terms of winter storms. One can witness the stretch of the Atlantic coast covering most of the continent including France, Italy, and Germany which have topped the list. 

"The two most impactful events were a hailstorm that injured 100 people in Casamassima, Italy, on August 19 and a severe weather outbreak that led to damaged windows and roofs, dozens of injuries, and death in northeastern Spain on August 30," said the ESSL while sharing the data of Europe's record-breaking winter storms. 

The scientific reason for these outbreaks shows that many of the events occurred when Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) was high, and shear values were in the modest range, reported New York Post. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, CAPE means a measurement of the amount of instability available for thunderstorms.

Taking to Twitter, ESSL wrote "After 2021, 2022 was another record-breaking year for large hail in Europe. We've received more than 8,000 reports of large and more than 1,300 reports of very large hail in the Early Warning Storm Detection (ESWD). In our newest blog, we look at the major hailstorm cases of 2022." 

Sharing their concerns on social media platforms, the organisation also shared pictures of the damage and shared major hailstorms of 2022 in CAPE-shear parameter space.

European Winter Storms 

The hailstorm events vary, some last for a few minutes, however, major outbreaks can last several hours. During the spring of 2022, European meteorologists tracked a cell that produced hail for around five hours and travelled over 180 miles through France. Four people have been injured, 250 houses have been damaged and more than 1,000 vehicles have been affected by the hailstorm. The hail has been witnessed by 8,000 people of which 1,334 of them have considered it to be around the size of an egg and 18 of them saw it as softball-sized or larger. According to Swiss Re, an insurance firm based in Switzerland, France has suffered losses totaling more than $5 billion in 2022 and has exceeded the previous record by a factor of at least three due to the hailstorms. Weather analysts cited inflation, increased urbanisation as the reason for major losses. 

Image: Twitter

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Published January 22nd, 2023 at 17:20 IST

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