Hail Storms

Regions along the Icy River of West tgohab lie in probably the worst possible spot when it comes to weather. We’re not gonna get too far into the logic of the hottest regions of our world being just across the river from the coldest one, but no matter how far you try to bend the rules of any realistic logic it’s clear that the weather here would be heavily affected by the location of this region.

The weather here is known to be pretty extreme, from the unforgivably hot and dry summers, to unforgivably cold and snowy winters. In between those the region will experience all sorts of other extreme weather occurrences, the most common of them being hail storms. They most commonly occur between the summer and winter season and usually aren’t too bad, but there will always be at least 2 or 3 every year that are particularly extreme. They feature significantly large ice balls, heavy rain, thunder storms and strong winds that make it risky to stay outside.

How bad does it get?

Now, you have probably already noticed that all of the buildings in this area are made of metal, and these storms are one of the reasons for it. It was back in the day when people only recently moved into this area that they started building towns consisting of pretty normal buildings. These hail storms have already been happening then, some worse, some less worse, some doing more damage than others. But none of the damage was truly irreparable, or bad enough to drive people out of these regions.

his went on for quite a long time, until the infamous “hail storm of 2006”. This has happened centuries ago now, so no one reliably remembers the details of it, but the reports of it remain. They describe a brutal storm with ice balls the size of grapefruits falling from the sky and destroying everything in their way. Many people who got caught outside in it were killed and even inside it wasn't safe. The hail storm has caused significant damage to the buildings and left some districts in complete ruin. The people had no choice but to rebuild their cities, but have now reinforced their buildings with thick metal siding that would offer protection from such extreme events.

Storms like this are rare, but may still occur once every few years, but still, the ones that do happen each year are extreme enough.

How do people deal with this?

Today, people are much safer in their metal armored buildings, but they still do fear these extreme hail storms. They know they will happen at least once each year, and they need to be prepared for that. With our today’s technological advances in many areas including meteorology, it’s easy to predict when these storms will happen. People are warned days in advance and have enough time to prepare themselves. On these days the whole district will shut down, urging people to stay inside, and stock up with everything they need in advance. They will put away everything like cars, lawn furniture or anything else that could usually be left outside, otherwise it’s sure to get severely damaged or ruined.

All of this might seem a bit over dramatic, considering these storms usually come and go within minutes or may last up to an hour at worst, but considering how bad they can get, it’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s really hard to pinpoint the exact time the storm will happen, especially days in advance, and more of these can occur in the span of a few days, so people would usually stay inside for at least a full day, or up to 3 days. In more extreme cases it could be even more than 3 days, but generally these extreme weather conditions are known to come and go very quickly.

Type

Natural