Where are you most likely to get caught in a hailstorm?
The Western Highlands of Kenya in Africa. In terms of annual downpour, Kericho in Kenya has more hail than anywhere else on earth, since it falls on average 132 days each year. By comparison, the UK averages only fifteen hail-days in a year and the worst affected area in the US, the eastern Rockies, experiences an average of forty-five haildays a year. What causes the abundance of hail is not fully understood. Kericho is the home of Kenya’s tea plantations, and a 1978 study showed that organic litter from the tea plants gets stirred into the atmosphere, where it acts as a nucleus around which hailstones can grow. Another theory is that the high altitude of the region could be to blame, as the shape of the terrain causes a large uplift of warm air which quickly condenses. This, and the reduced distance between the freezing level (about 3 miles up) and the ground, reduces the chance of hailstones melting. The average hailstone is about quarter of an inch across, but they can grow large e...