After weeks of scorching heat, we may have to get out our toughest umbrellas, or, better yet, stay indoors when hail falls on parts of Java this month.
According to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), seasonal transitions are going to happen throughout Indonesia, which will bring extreme weather with them. The agency warned of high potential for hail in the provinces of West Java and Central Java, as well as surrounding regions, from now until around mid-November.
“We must be cautious of these extreme weather conditions,” BMKG Weather Forecast and Early Warnings Department Head Miming Saepudin said in a press conference in Jakarta yesterday, as quoted by Suara.
In fact, hail actually fell briefly on the West Java city of Bogor — which neighbors Jakarta — on Saturday, along with strong winds that knocked down several trees.
Hail is quite a rare occurrence in Indonesia, but the phenomenon was observed several times over the past few years. In 2017, one person was killed and several others were injured in the East Java capital of Surabaya during a rainstorm that produced hail. Jakarta also saw brief periods of hail that year, as well as in 2014 before that.
