Indigenously developed ‘anti-hail guns’

  • IASbaba
  • June 12, 2021
  • 0
UPSC Articles
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Indigenously developed ‘anti-hail guns’

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-I – Geography and GS II – Policies and interventions 

In news

  • To help out horticulturists who face crop damage due to hailstorms, the Himachal Pradesh government will be testing the use of indigenously developed ‘anti-hail guns’
    • The indigenous guns have been developed by IIT Bombay along with Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry at Nauni (Solan).

About the anti-hail gun

  • An anti-hail gun is a machine which generates shock waves to disrupt the growth of hailstones in clouds.
  • It comprises a tall, fixed structure somewhat resembling an inverted tower, several metres high, with a long and narrow cone opening towards the sky.
  • The gun is “fired” by feeding an explosive mixture of acetylene gas and air into its lower chamber, which releases a shock wave 
    • Shock waves travel faster than the speed of sound, such as those produced by supersonic aircraft).
  • These shock waves supposedly stop water droplets in clouds from turning into hailstones, so that they fall simply as raindrops. 

Important value additions 

Hail

  • Hail is solid precipitation made of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. 
  • Hailstones consist mostly of water ice and measure between 5 mm and 15 cm in diameter.
  • Any thunderstorm, which produces hail that reaches the ground, is termed a hailstorm.
  • Maharashtra is India’s most hailstorm-prone state, according to an IMD analysis of hailstorms across the country between 1981 and 2015.

Search now.....

Sign Up To Receive Regular Updates