Photo by NOAA

Man alive, check out the hailstone that fell in sunny Hawaii earlier this month. It’s four inches long and it has TEETH. I’m not actually convinced it’s not an embryonic yeti.

Help Grist raise $25,000 by September 30 to further advance our climate reporting

And, just like a yeti embryo, the conditions had to be just right to produce this monster:

Hail the size of golf balls and baseballs can only form within intense thunderstorms called supercells. These supercells need warm, moist air to rise into progressively colder, drier air, as well as winds changing direction and increasing speed with increasing height off the ground.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Here's How

For both sets of conditions to exist at the same time in Hawaii is extremely rare, but that did occur on March 9.

Now, I’m not saying climate change is going to lead to fist-sized spineballs from the sky. I’m just saying, “extreme weather” can look pretty terrifying.