Posted on 10/09/2008 7:04:50 PM PDT by Goonch
Was it blue?
It could also be ice that accumulated on the leading edge surfaces of an airplane climbing through clouds; the ice could have then separated from the plane at a later time. Pieces of ice like that can sometimes be quite large, in the tens of feet long.
“Was it blue?”
See photo post #1
Gravity, the likely culprit.
Good think that her head is tougher than roof. That thing could have gone through bed, floor, basement, onto China and cause shtock market to faul, it is huuugh!
ANYTHING can, and does, happen in York. Pennsyvlania.
"Megacryometeors: The phenomenon of abnormally large chunks of ice falling from a clear sky is giving rise to an interesting debate. Are they real? Are they from God? Are they a consequence of 'Global Warming'?"
Megacryometeors hit Dubuque, Iowa today.
York Ice Machinery Corporation
Currently outsourcing
“ice chunks weighing up to 6.6 pounds rained on Spain out of cloudless skies for 10 days.”
WHAT BECAME OF THE RAIN IN SPAIN?
Most weigh 25 to 35 pounds, but one whopper found in Brazil tipped the scales at 440 pounds.
“And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.—Rev 16:21 (KJV)
Scientists try to crack the mystery of falling ice balls
By MICHAEL WOODS
Toledo Blade
December 10, 2003
BARCELONA, Spain - A Spanish-American scientific team is monitoring ice events in the United States this winter following research on a baffling phenomenon first detected here.
They’re not watching for ordinary ice storms or slick roads, but incidents involving “megacryometeors,” great balls of ice that fall out of the clear blue sky - possibly due to global warming.
“I’m not worried that a block of ice may fall on your head,” said Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Center for Astrobiology, in Madrid. “I’m worried that great blocks of ice are forming where they shouldn’t exist.”
Heads, however, have very nearly been cracked by megacryometeors, a term coined from “mega,” which means “big,” “cryo” for “ice” and “meteor,” the extraterrestrial debris that streak through the atmosphere.
Most weigh 25 to 35 pounds, but one whopper found in Brazil tipped the scales at 440 pounds.
Ice balls have punched holes in the roofs of houses, smashed through car windshields and whizzed right past people’s heads.
Last winter, an ice chunk that eyewitnesses described as “half the size of a car” ripped through the roof of an automobile dealership in Lawrenceville, Ga.
Incidents like those may be just the beginning, according to David Travis, who researches atmospheric conditions that foster megacryometeor formation. He chairs the department of geography and geology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
“If megacryometeor formation is linked to global warming, as we suspect, then it is fair to assume that these events may increase in the future,” Travis said.
Martinez-Frias pioneered research on megacryometeors in January 2000, after ice chunks weighing up to 6.6 pounds rained on Spain out of cloudless skies for 10 days. A government scientific research agency thought the ice might be extraterrestrial, from a comet, and asked him to investigate.
At first, scientists thought the phenomenon was unique to Spain. But they’ve accumulated strong evidence that megacryometeors are a global event, Travis said. They’ve documented ice balls falling from cloudless skies everywhere from China to the United States and studied about 20 events outside Spain.
More than 50 falls have been confirmed, and researchers believe that’s a small fraction of the actual number, since most may hit unoccupied areas or melt before discovery.
Travis said there appears to be a seasonal pattern to such falls, with most occurring in January, February and March.
“I am anxiously waiting to see what will happen this winter,” Travis said. “We’ll be keeping a lookout, and we want to make people in every state aware and ask their help. We strongly encourage eyewitnesses to preserve samples, in a freezer if need be, and contact us.”
Researchers had samples from the 2000 incidents to analyze, thanks to quick-thinking eyewitnesses who kept the material cold.
Martinez-Frias’ team quickly ruled out obvious explanations.
The ice balls, for instance, were not frozen water from toilets flushed on jetliners. The ice contained no human waste and none of the blue disinfectant used in airplane toilets.
Air-traffic-control records showed that no planes overflew the areas near the ice falls, so the ice was not shed from aircraft wings or fuselages.
Chunks of debris from a comet?
Comets, after all, are composed partly of extraterrestrial ice. But lab tests showed that ice in megacryometeors had the distinctive chemical signature of ice in ordinary terrestrial hailstones.
When sawed in half, they also showed the physical profile of hailstones.
“These occurrences are not the result of hoaxers, either,” Travis said. “There are too many similarities in the atmospheric conditions associated (with) their occurrences that hoaxers would have no knowledge or interest in.”
That leaves monster hailstones forming in a cloudless sky, a notion that defies more than a century of research on hail formation.
“Scientists are naturally reluctant to say something never can happen,” noted Charles Knight, a hail expert at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a university consortium in Boulder, Colo. “But oh, dear. I would be tempted to say ‘never’ on this.”
Knight said he has reviewed scientific papers published on megacryometeors, and thinks the explanation, which involves unusual atmospheric conditions possibly linked to global warming, is wrong.
Wait! She's anticipating delivery of her Cryogel Ice Balls! Ain't Nature grand!
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