Blogtrek

The size of hailstones

I have been hearing reports in the media and from NOAA and other weather people about hailstorms. In these reports they describe to us how big they were. They don't say "13 mm" or "1 inch" because most of us don't have a feel for how big that is. Instead, they say things like "golf-ball-sized hail", or "quarter-sized hail". I tried doing a Google&tm; game on that. I Googled for "sized hail". I got these sizes: pea, nickel, quarter, dime, golf ball, tennis ball, baseball, grapefruit, softball, soccer, and volleyball. Volleyball-sized hail? That would really be apocalyptic. Good thing I got no basketball-sized hail.

But what is of more interest to me is the object that people use to compare hail with. Most of the time it is either a monetary coin or a ball from a ball game of some sort. Does the selection of such words reflect our society? Is it mainly interested in money and sports? It would appear that way, when football and basketball stars earn tens of millions of dollars a year. Suppose people were more interested in gardening instead. Then we would see "petunia-sized hail" or "dandelion-sized hail"; something like that. A person in the medical field might say "fingernail-sized hail" or "kneecap-sized hail". The fact that hail is either dime-sized or tennis-ball-sized tells me something about our society. Namely, that we are gaga about moolah and sports.