Coimbatore: Hailstorm has shattered the hopes of farmers in the district, especially those at Annur, Saravanampatti and Sulur, who have been looking forward to reaping rich yields after toiling for months together. Most of their crops, all ready for harvest, have now been destroyed.The plight of farmers in Ooty and Conoor in the Nilgiris district, and Punjai Puliampatti in Erode district isn’t any different either. Farmers say the western region hadn’t reported a hailstorm of this magnitude in the past two decades. According to them, this is the first hailstorm to hit the western districts of Tamil Nadu in six years. And this time, the hailstorm lasted for three days from March 17 to 19. Farmers in Annur area say around 15,000 acres of farmland in the locality was damaged in the hailstorm. “Most of the banana plantations ready for harvest were destroyed. The last hailstorm was five to six years ago, but there was no crop damage. This time, ice pellets remained on farmlands for more than a day. It is unusual. My family cultivated banana, watermelon and coconut, all of which were in the harvest stage. As these crops are in high demand during summer, we were expecting high returns. But everything has been lost to the hailstorm.” Coimbatore district joint director of agriculture M Thamilselvi, along with scientists from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), on Friday inspected the villages in Annur taluk that reported damages to standing crops. Thamilselvi says such intensive crop damage as this has not been reported due to hailstorm in the district in the past 20 years. “The damage is reported across three villages in Annur block – Chengapalli, Aambothi and Kanavukkarai. Hhrticultural crops like banana and tomato were the ones mainly affected. Damage assessment is under way and a report will be submitted to the district collector on Saturday.” G Dheebakaran, associate professor, Agro Climate Research Centre, TNAU, who was part of the inspection team, pointed out that ice pellets did not melt for more than 38 hours in the region. “This hailstorm is considered a rare phenomenon, because generally ice pellets melt in three to four hours after rainfall. Hailstones are formed where the precipitation occurs from more than five to six kilometres above the atmosphere in a cold cloud. Looking at the torn leaves and intensity of crop damage, it is presumed that the hail’s distance exceeded the usual one this time, reaching a super cool stage. Also, hail is commonly recorded in wet conditions, but this time it was recorded in a very dry situation.” Dr N K Sathyamoorthi, professor and head, Agro Climate Research Centre, TNAU, and Dr V Geethalakshmi, an expert in agricultural meteorology, attributed this condition to possible climate change. “Though this cannot be fully attributed to climate change, the frequency of its occurrence is definitely related to climate change. It is usually reported in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu and rarely in the western parts once in four or five years before summer,” says Sathyamoorthi. According to Geethalakshmi, hailstones are formed due to a sudden rise in temperatures, causing immediate convection of air mass, lifting the humidity in the air into extremely cold, high-altitude regions of the atmosphere upward. “For every 1km upward movement of airmass, the temperature drops by 6.5°C, forming ice pellets. So, the force and distance at which it drops will damage crops and properties like glasshouses.” Similar hailstorms were reported across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Darjeeling on March 15 and 16.
