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Ice chunks fall in U.S. neighbourhood

DUBUQUE (IOWA): Large chunks of ice, one of them reportedly weighing about 50 pounds (22.5 kg), fell from the sky in Iowa, smashing through a roof and tearing through nearby trees.

Authorities said they were unsure of the ice’s origin but theorised that the chunks either fell from an airplane or naturally accumulated high in the atmosphere — both rare occurrences.

“It sounded like a bomb,” said Jan Kenkel, 78. She said she was standing in her kitchen when an ice chunk crashed through her roof on Thursday morning. “I jumped about a foot!”

She discovered a messy pile of insulation, bits of ceiling, splintered wood and about 50 pounds (22.5 kg) of solid ice.

Neighbours Karle and Mary Beth Wigginton said they heard a loud “whoosh” coming through the trees, discovering several large chunks of ice in front of their home in this city in northwestern Iowa in the country’s Midwest.

Elizabeth Cory, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators would to try to determine the source of the ice. “It is very uncommon for something like this to come from an aircraft,” she said. “That is really unusual if it is pure white ice, especially at this time of year.”

Occasionally, aircraft latrines discharge contents at altitude, resulting in chunks of descending ice. Airplanes also sometimes accumulate ice on their edges in certain atmospheric conditions, including high altitude and extreme moisture, said pilot Robert Grierson, manager of the Dubuque Regional Airport.

The moisture involved in such a scenario could have come from the tops of strong thunderstorms. However, Dubuque had clear skies at the time the ice fell, said Andy Ervin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport.

David Travis, a professor of geography and geology and an associate dean at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, said it was possible the ice could have been a megacryometeor, “similar to a hailstone, but without the thunderstorm.”

Professor Travis is part of a research team that has documented more than 50 possible megacryometeor cases during the past five years. Some involve ice chunks the size of microwave ovens.

“It is hard to keep something like that suspended in air without a thunderstorm,” he said. Most megacryometeor sightings have occurred in coastal areas, where atmospheric turbulence helps keep ice suspended long enough to grow into large chunks. Professor Travis’ research team speculated the phenomenon could be linked to global warming. — AP

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