On the seventeenth of July, 1666, a violent storm of hail fell on the
English coast, in Norfolk and Suffolk. At North Yarmouth the hailstones
were comparatively small; but at Snapebridge, one was taken up which
measured a foot in circumference; at Seckford Hall, one which measured
nine inches; and at Melton, one measuring eight inches. At Friston Hall,
one of these hailstones, being put into a balance, weighed two ounces
and a half. At Aldborough, it was affirmed that several of them were as
large as turkeys’ eggs. A carter had his head broken by them through a
stiff felt hat: in some places it bled, and in others tumors arose: the
horses were so pelted that they hurried away his cart beyond all
command. The hailstones were white, smooth without, and shining within.
On the twenty-fifth of May, 1686, the city of Lille, in Flanders, was
visited by a tremendous hail-storm. The hailstones weighed from a
quarter of a pound to a pound in weight, and even more. One was observed
to contain in the center a dark brown matter, and being thrown into the
fire, gave a very loud report. Others were transparent, and melted
instantly before the fire. This storm passed over the city and citadel,
leaving not a whole glass in the windows on the windward side. The trees
were broken, and some beaten down, and partridges and hares killed in
abundance.
In 1697, a horrid black cloud, attended with frequent lightnings and
thunder, coming with a south-west wind out of Caernarvonshire, in Wales,
and passing near Snowdon, was the precursor of a most tremendous
hailstorm. In the part of Denbighshire bordering on the sea, all the
windows on the weather side were broken by the hailstones discharged
from this cloud, and the poultry and lambs, together with a large
mastiff, killed. In the north part of Flintshire, several persons had
their heads broken, and were grievously bruised in their limbs. The main
body of this hail-storm fell on Lancashire, in a right line from
Ormskirk to Blackburn, on the borders of Yorkshire. The breadth of the
cloud was about two miles, within which compass it did incredible
damage, killing all descriptions of fowl and small creatures, and
scarcely leaving a whole pane of glass in any of the windows where it
passed. What was still worse, it plowed up the earth, and cut off the
blade of the green corn, so as utterly to destroy it, the hailstones
burying themselves in the ground. These hailstones, some of which
weighed five ounces, were of different forms, some round, others
semi-spherical; some smooth, others embossed and crenulated, like the
foot of a drinking-glass, the ice being very transparent and hard; but a
snowy kernel was in the midst of most of them, if not of all. The force
of their fall showed that they descended from a great hight. What was
thought to be most extraordinary in this phenomenon was, that the vapor
which disposed the aqueous parts thus to congeal, should have continued
undispersed for so long a tract as upward of sixty miles, and should,
during this extensive passage, have occasioned so extraordinary a
coagulation and congelation of the watery clouds, as to increase the
hailstones to so vast a bulk in so short a space as that of their fall.
On the fourth of May, 1767, at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, after a
violent thunder-storm, a black cloud suddenly arose in the south-west,
about two o’clock in the afternoon, the wind then blowing strongly in
the east, and was almost instantly followed by a shower of hail, several
of the hailstones measuring from seven or eight to thirteen or fourteen
inches in diameter. The extremity of the storm fell near Offley, where a
young man was killed, and one of his eyes was beaten out of his head,
his body being in every part covered with bruises. Another person,
nearer to Offley, escaped with his life, but was much bruised. At a
nobleman’s seat in the vicinity, seven thousand squares of glass were
broken, and great damage was done to all the neighboring houses. The
large hailstones fell in such immense quantities, that they tore up the
ground, and split many large oaks and other trees, cutting down
extensive fields of rye, and destroying several hundred acres of wheat,
barley, &c. Their figures were various, some being oval, others round,
others pointed, and others again flat.