HAIL HITS IN EASTERN GEORGIA

Abstract

Hail is a hazardous weather phenomena, which inflict enormous damage to the economy, especially agriculture, since often completely demolishes or considerably damages crops, plants, gardens, vineyards, extirpates live-stock, destroys buildings and various constructions. Georgia was one of the first countries worldwide, where as early as from 60's of the last century has been arranged a specialized service for combating with hail, which protected about 200 thousands hectares of territory Hail-suppression works have been interrupted after the collapse of Soviet Union but in last year, as a result of catastrophic hail hits, which inflict considerable material damage, the Georgian government has raised a question of renewal of hail-suppression works. Institutes of Hydrometeorology and geophysics have been assigned with solution of this problem. All this placed on the agenda a question of necessity of study of space structure of number of hail days, its periodicity, intensity, duration and areas of hail hit on the basis of advanced materials, and that was namely the goal of this article. Number of hail days, periods of hailfall, intensity, duration, number and area of hail hits have been studied according the materials of observations made by 30 meteorological stations of Eastern Georgia as of from 1961 to 2012. Obtained results will be used in case of renewal of hail-suppression works.