14 DAY TRIAL // A strange megacryometeor fell through the roof of a house in Dubuque, Iowa, starting scientific dispute over its origins. Although some phenomena are known to cause this type of large ice meteorite, so far no valid explanation has been found.
Megacryometeors are large chunks of ice (mega = very big, cryo = ice), which are known to form under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus clouds scenario, that create hail.
They can literally fall out of blue skies, as it happened in Spain in January 2000 when ice blocks weighing up to 6.6 pounds rained on Spain out of cloudless skies for 10 days. The one in Iowa, as reported by the AP, followed the pattern and crashed at a time when no clouds were visible in the sky.
Home owner Jan Kenkel was watching TV when a 50-pound block of ice came crashing through the roof of her room. No unusual cloud formations or storms were reported in the region and the origins of the meteorite remains unknown.
Aircrafts occasionally shed ice that accumulates on the wings or leaks out of the toilets and the tops of thunderstorms can generate chunks of ice akin to large hailstones, but so far none of them have been found to reach this impressive size.
However, analysis indicated that the ice was too pure to have come from an aircraft, so some people are wondering if global warming has something do to with this mysterious phenomenon and to the massive increase in size of the falling objects.
David Travis, a scientist who studies the phenomenon, told the AP that megacryometeors could be linked to global warming as climate change makes critical parts of the atmosphere colder, moister and more turbulent.
Could this mean we will see more of these large chunks of ice crashing on houses with clear skies above?