Hailstorm

S1, E3: “… and the Lord sent thunder and hail, … and fire mingled with the hail,” reports the Old Testament. “And the hail smote … all that was in the field, both man and beast.” (Exodus 9:23–25). Mostly on the edge of mountain ranges such as the Alps and the Rocky Mountains, hail and heavy rain have devastating effects today in conjunction with global warming: crops are destroyed, homes and cars are swept away, adding up to billions of dollars in damages. Thousands of people have already died as a result of floods, landslides and mudslides. The documentary, Return of the Plagues, follows individual researchers in Germany, Austria, and Colorado who are trying to determine the conditions that cause these disasters, laying the groundwork for possibly controlling them in the future, or at least making more reliable predictions. Scientists study the dramatic sequence of events in a landslide or a flood, and they test man-made structures that are meant to withstand the enormous power of these mountains. In Styria, “hail pilots” fly small propeller aircraft into menacing thunderclouds, in order to manipulate the weather.