30 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 402 



Many of the hailstones at Buzzard's Bay and Sagamore were 5 inches In cir- 

 cumference (measured). The hall began at 7 to 7:30 and lasted only about 

 10 minutes at Buzzard's Bay. A powerful wind and heavy rain came with this 

 storm and hundreds of trees were uprooted and many buildings moved and 

 wrecked. Window panes in great numbers were destroyed in the region of 

 Buzzard's Bay, Bourne, and Sagamore. The hail did considerable damage as far 

 east as West Barnstable. 



3. September 6, 1905. This storm came in the afternoon and was confined 

 to the eastern part of Wareham. The hail lasted only about 3 minutes, but hit 

 quite a number of bogs and probably destroyed 4,000 to 5,000 barrels of cran- 

 berries. 



4. June 1, 1925. Widespread hail, falling late in the afternoon from Center 

 Carver to Cataumet, reduced the prospective cranberry crop at least 25,000 

 barrels, most of the loss being in Wareham, the southern part of Carver, and the 

 western edge of Plj-mouth. It completely defoliated the vines and even cut off 

 cranberry branches and drifted them in rolls on some bogs. It barked trees and 

 scored telephone poles on the windward side. It broke window panes freely in 

 Carver and Wareham and in parts of Plj'mouth and Bourne. It was driven by a 

 wind so strong that it wrecked some buildings and mo^•ed others. 



5. June 26, 1938. Hail in the eastern part of Rochester and the western part 

 of W'areham reduced the prospective cranberry crop by probably 5,000 barrels. 

 The bog areas affected also failed to bud well for 1939. This storm came early 

 in the afternoon. 



Injury by hail on Massachusetts cranberry bogs is almost entirely confined to 

 June, July, and August. It occurs oftener but is less extensive and severe in 

 August than In June and Jul}-. These differences are due to seasonal variation in 

 the height of the freezing ceiling, strength of convection, and amount of water 

 vapor In the atmosphere. 



Destructive summer hail in southeastern Massachusetts comes usually in the 

 afternoon or evening, rarely at night, and probably never In the morning. Un- 

 usually tall pillars of cumulus clouds In the forenoon are a fair sign of hail later 

 in the day. Hail is always part of a violent thunderstorm, and a thunder cloud 

 reaching unusual heights with a strongly marked spreading cirrlform crown at 

 the top Is pretty sure to have It. Thunderstorms generally move easterly. This 

 and the lay of the land and sea determine that. In all locations in most of the 

 cranberry district, summer hailstorms must nearly always approach from a 

 direction in the quadrant north-northwest to west-southwest. 



New Jersey 



Hail occurs less often toward the coast than away from It. A hailstorm on 

 August 18, 1900, destroyed about 7,000 barrels of cranberries south of Medford. 

 Numerous hailstorms helped reduce the 1904 crop. One of the most important 

 of these storms occurred near Pemberton on May 22, 1923. It started at about 

 2 p. m. and the hail gathered to a depth of 3 or 4 inches. It defoliated cranberry 

 vines almost completely. 



Wisconsin 



As the cranberry bogs of Wisconsin are much more scattered than those in the 

 Cape Cod district, hail does less harm there in spite of its more frequent occur- 

 rence. It partially eliminated the crop of the Berlin district In 1907. It struck 

 the bog of the Badger Cranberry' Company at Beaver Brook severely on August 6, 

 1928, reducing the crop 2,000 barrels, impairing the quality of the rest of the fruit, 

 and affecting the vines so that they took on their winter color and budded very 

 poorly for the 1929 crop. The most extensive summer hall in the history of the 

 Wisconsin Industry came In the Cranmoor district on September 18, 1935. It 

 damaged 12,000 to 15,000 barrels of berries, about 2,000 barrels being a complete 

 loss. 



