Extreme Temperatures
New York - Chunks of ice apparently fell from the sky on an 80-degree day in Brooklyn. The question is, where did they come from?
Terry Blasi and Louie Vitale said they were sitting on Blasi's porch on Wednesday when something the size of a softball crashed through the trees.
"All of a sudden something had come down through the trees really loud and then a loud thump on the ground," Vitale told TV 10/55′s Dick Brennan on Friday.
The pair raced to the street and found a chunk of ice.
"It must have come through really fast and then thud. It sounded like a bowling ball went through," Blasi said.
PE teacher Tommy Matthews, 52, of The Gluyas arrived home from work to find an inch of hail covering the street.
Neighbours' garages were flooded and manholes burst as the hail turned into a stream of water.
The hail storm, which left cars sliding on roads, occurred at about 17:00 BST after a Met Office warning of heavy rain in the South West overnight.

Tens of thousands of people have been cut off by the snow and several deaths have been reported
The arrival of the snow on an Antarctic cold front last week was accompanied by extremely cold conditions, with temperatures as low as Minus 19C, which have persisted ever since. Even Chile's Atacama desert, one of the world's driest, did not escape, receiving its heaviest snowfall in 30 years.
Peru seems to have been worst hit, with the heaviest snow in a decade resulting in the deaths of up to 30,000 farm animals, including llamas, alpacas, cattle and sheep.
A combination of drifting snow and poor visibility has been blamed. While ski area management were aware of an approaching front and poor forecast, the situation deteriorated quickly, Mt Hutt ski area manager James McKenzie said.
There are 316 people trapped on the mountain.
"We made a decision to close the mountain at 11.30 this morning and a number of people made it safely down the road," he said.
"However at midday a combination of new snow blowing around everywhere and wind gusts of up to 45km/h, especially around the Saddles, meant visibility along the upper section of the access road deteriorated to the extent we closed the road completely.
"Guest safety is of paramount concern and we're continually assessing the conditions. We won't rush to get people down until visibility improves.
He said the skiers were doing well.
"We've got plenty of food, hot drinks and space up here in the base building, so if we do have to hunker down into the hours of darkness our guests will be warm, dry and well looked after."
Normally, a supply barge arrives in the area in early summer to replenish stocks of fuel and other necessities in those communities. But this year, that trip is being held up by ice. As much as 30 to 40 per cent of the Arctic Ocean remains covered in ice.
"We have not seen ice with this type of coverage in quite a few years and I really don't know how far back we might've seen it," says Bill Smith, a spokesman with Northern Transportation Company Ltd., which services the communities.
"It's the opposite of what we've been seeing for the last few years where, generally, ice conditions have been improving from a transportation perspective."
Other low temperatures included 17ºF at both Chandalar DOT and Coldfoot DOT and a chilly 13F at the Norutak Lake RAWS west of Bettles. These are close to, but not at the record low temperature for the month of August in the state.
http://ak-wx.blogspot.de/2013/08/record-cold-in-northern-interior.html
Thanks to F. Guimaraes for this link
"The winter could be starting earlier!" says Guimaraes.
1 Sep 13 - Snowfall in parts of the southern highlands of Peru has killed more than 25,000 animals and destroyed 137 homes, according to the National Institute of Civil Defense (Indeci).
(These are government numbers. I earlier reported that 250,000 alpacas had been killed in Peru. This is on top of the 70,000 animals killed in Bolivia.The national government on Saturday declared a state of emergency in 250 localities of the country since the snow is expected to continue for about 60 days.
Until Saturday, there were a total of 5,247 people injured and 739 homes declared uninhabitable in Apurimac (south), Cusco (southeast), Ayacucho (South Central), Huancavelica (center), Puno (southeast) and Junin (center) .
The deputy director of humanitarian assistance and mobilization of the National Institute of Civil Defense (Indeci), Eric Cortijo, reported that this phenomenon affected more than 67,000 people. (I don't know what he meant by "affected.")

The high temperatures of the meteorite impact 12,900 years ago produced mm-sized spherules of melted glass with the mullite and corundum crystal structure shown here.
Scientists have traced the geochemical signature of the BB-sized spherules that rained down back to their source, the 1.5-billion-year-old Quebecia terrane in northeastern Canada near the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
At the time of the impact, the region was covered by a continental ice sheet, like Antarctica and Greenland are today.
"We have provided evidence for an impact on top of the ice sheet," said study co-author Mukul Sharma, a geochemist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. The results were published today (Sept. 2) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The cold spell has killed at least seven people in Peru, four in Bolivia and two in Paraguay.
In the latter, the authorities blamed the weather for the death of more than 5,000 cattle too.
Weather forecasters say a cold front from Antarctica entered the region almost a week ago.
On Friday, the Peruvian deputy education minister, Martin Vegas, said schools were closed in 43 provinces in 10 regions.
The snow, which has caused severe damage to mining machinery and infrastructure, is not only preventing output, even people find it difficult to walk in those conditions.
Weather conditions during the last days were terrible, said Panfilo Brand , president of Quime City Council. "We are cut off from the rest of the department . Snow has created havoc in our sheds and compressors, which have been damaged and no longer work, which prevents the production in the extraction of minerals. "