“Lightning struck. The skies suddenly went dark. Then it rained ice and there was strong wind like a whirlwind. It was scary.”

That was how Tina Orbecido, who had gone on an Easter Sunday picnic at the Panaad Park and Sports Stadium in Barangay Mansilingan, Bacolod City, yesterday described her family’s   experience that, she said, was “just like out of a movie.”

Benjie Ballesteros of the Negros Occidental Provincial Disaster Management Team Monday had confirmed that hail, or snow pellets the size of a small pea, fell Sunday in the Mansilingan area.

Hail is formed in huge cumulo-nimbus clouds, commonly known as thunderheads.

Orbecido said she, her husband, Ernel, and their three children – Crisnel, 9, Ina, 4, and Jose Niel, 2 – along with more than a hundred people were having fun at the Panaad pool Sunday when   it started to rain at noon.

The cottages at the park were also full, she said.

“We did not get out of the pool when it rained because we were having so much fun but at around 1 p.m. the sky suddenly turned dark, there was lighting and cold corn kernel-seized ice fell on our faces, they hurt,” she said.

“People started shouting. There was strong wind that followed like a whirlwind and the lifeguard was blowing his whistle telling us to get out of the pool,” she said.

“People rushed for shelter, no one though of taking pictures,” she said.

She said her husband who had gone to comfort room was surprised to see that the pool was suddenly empty.

Lifeguard Deo Lanza, 39, said he kept blowing his whistle for people to get out of the pool because the situation looked dangerous.

He said there were more than 100 people in the 10 by 25 meter pool.

“It must have rained ice for close to a minute and the sky went dark for about 30 seconds,” he said.

Orbecido said she thinks the ice fell for about 5 minutes.

“The ice hit people’s faces and one could hear the thumping sound as it fell on roof tops,” Lanza said.

Ballesteros said that cumulo-nimbus clouds form when cold air rises very high into the sky and winds within the cloud push water droplets up to very cold parts of the atmosphere where they freeze.

When the ice drops come back down, they get another coating of water and are pushed back up to freeze again. Finally, they get too heavy to stay in the cloud and fall to the earth as hail stones, Ballesteros explained.

With the onset of summer and hot weather condition at noon and cold air at nighttime, people can expect to see hail instead of rainfall from time to time, he said.

While most people consider it as a phenomenon, Ballesteros said there is nothing to be alarmed about hail since it stops falling after several seconds, followed by natural rain.*CPG

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