Return of the Bible Plagues Part 3: Hailstorm | Full Documentary

[Music] the Bible called them plays today we call them natural disasters but they are actually one and the same and the biblical plagues are coming back [Music] [Music] a hailstorm in the Austrian Alps in just a few minutes hail storms can do millions of dollars worth of damage in Austria it's happening year after year and it's likely to get worse hail thunderstorms torrential downpours and the havoc they wreak are terrifying in their effects [Music] and this is despite advances in science and technology but some people are rising to the challenge they are trying to get to the bottom of these unpredictable uncontrollable weather events [Music] [Music] Egypt 1500 BC the Pharaoh was building a new Royal City he needed workers and he used the people of Israel as slaves after generations of oppression the people of Yahweh demanded their freedom but Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go Moses went to Pharaoh and warned him of the plagues God would visit upon the land of Egypt then a dreadful thing happened the waters of the Nile turned to blood all the fish died frogs braid uncontrollably infesting the homes of the Egyptians next came a plague of insects and then a plague upon the cattle but Pharaoh hardened his heart for the seventh plague God sent terrible storms hail lightning and thunder fire yes right when Moses stretched out his staff towards the sky the Lord stands under and hail and lightning flashed down to the ground so the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth it was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields both men and animals it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree I think they could have had no expectation of this hailstorm it was that you know something which developed in in in the clouds well above them and then these hail storms came came thundering down so they couldn't not have expected it at all the hail would have beaten down the plants it's the Bible says it stripped the leaves off the trees it implies the hailstones are very large because it damaged animals so those animals who hadn't been killed by the plague on the animals the hell would have damaged the animals so it would have caused huge destruction [Music] Texas May 2006 the frightening force of the hailstorm is captured on amateur video Texas Colorado India China Austria hail storms wreak terrible destruction wherever they strike one of their main targets is the Alps it's not as idyllic here as it looks even at the height of summer the weather can change in an instant as the Sun beats down a lot of moisture evaporates thermal winds along the steep valley sides carry the moisture upwards until it turns into clouds and hail forms hail storms are particularly common in the Alps the stereo region of southern Austria is particularly vulnerable at veidt's airfield near Graz pilots of the local Heil defense Association are on watch for France Gruber and his pilot the boredom of waiting can suddenly turn into high tension they must be able to reach the most distant part of their 1800 square kilometer territory within minute [Music] Munich July 1984 the temperature was over 37 degrees centigrade storm cells developed in the foothills of the Alps they unleashed a hailstorm that brought the worst destruction this area has known since the Second World War people were injured cars and houses suffered major damage to the tune of two and a half billion Australian dollars there are such frequent hailstorms in the high plains east of the US Rocky Mountains that that region is known as Hale alley [Music] Boulder Colorado at the National Center for Atmospheric Research or in car Charles Knight has been studying Hale for over 40 years he's preserved some special hailstones in a cold storm this hailstone fell in in Coffeyville Kansas in 1972 and it weighs about 700 grams and a hailstone this size falls about 40 meters per second these hailstones of this size will go through the roofs of some houses and of course if they hit a person on the head it would kill them but in the United States people are not generally outdoors when such a storm happens in countries like China or India when when a Hills hailstorm if this kind of occurs they can they can kill quite a few people out in the open fields there was a storm in Bangladesh in 1986 that killed almost a hundred people this in this in this way back in the Alps reports of hail disasters are becoming ever more common hail does terrible damage to crops the insurers are getting worried the damage bill has virtually doubled every two years and the farmers look on helpless so tomorrow is about the trim here commenting on this way in Ohio in Newton what is throw out with Sox win ticket to change to him my search to Akash to Emma Watson Hogan no ha no fish no indict a no after the storm an expert from the Austrian hail insurance organization sets out at once this non-commercial body helps cushion the financial impact on the farmers he assesses the hail damage even though these plants look green they will bear no fruit and will even be useless as animal fodder conceived here France until authorities Jetson give up cannot arachnids Warburton we can see Joseph washed alien isn't blood flaking falou Stoddard isn't assimilations flaking for loosed so V women animation and illuminant vienen view de vain man here can if lay here at Mia - Martin women can a movie get hurt here so our civilian can ship tea plants you can turn up all the cannon for Kenya daily building [Music] nearby is a destroyed pumpkin field this field would have produced over a thousand litres of valuable pumpkin oil if not for the hail in just a few minutes everything was destroyed nothing was left but scrub in another field the same farmer lost the entire crop the combine harvester was booked for the very next day some of these of them failed of link takeoff from France coming in at the important it was neat net to every she sinker and stripe laughs - sexy does advance okay enough of obtained without centimeter this isn't it net to be sure I'm the all Atacama wasn't up Mataji in Yemen so there was net directa me to do not of Malaysia Hong Kong basmati to thank the bacon this is this is Karen Anna soak the hottest country unexcavated Anitra of this comes late st. Inka [Music] yosef Gras she has no choice but to plow it all under the greenhouse effect is changing living conditions in mountain regions all over the world it's getting hotter and drier but at the same time there are more extreme weather events such as torrential rain and hail storms [Music] some fruit growers have spent a fortune on giant nets to protect their precious harvests but the nets are expensive and the hail still destroys the fruit at the edges of the nets the cost of the damage is increasing dramatically season after season [Music] surprisingly little research has been done in the past on the exact effects of rain and hail Austrian scientists are now changing that experts at the UN am Research Centre in Graz are developing an instrument that will record exactly what is falling from the sky to test it they simulate both rain and hail wherever rain snow or hail is falling they can measure how big the hailstones are their speed and the force of their impact they hope that precise data will help them better predict the onset of hail storms they're checking for example how reliable radar is in observing hail your name scientists have helped develop software that distinguishes between rain and hail on the radar screen when a exact EPO often forgive it on common city egg shaft the particulate solution our bus at Hoffman got no tin roof twitter stand so he's neurotic Nilson Fermi can keep heating system artists performed descend on a plateau dolls they are entirely faced estatic listened tinium - oh [ __ ] the hyundai firm baby heart polarised braids are impulses scan the particles on both a vertical and a horizontal axis if both signals receive a similar echo they must be bouncing off a spherical shape and that means hailstones this method makes it possible to tell from a long way off whether or not approaching clouds will bring hail [Music] in Colorado in the US Rocky Mountains specialists are working on a hail early warning system the challenges that several different factors must be present for thunderstorms and rain storms to turn into hail so any attempt to forecast hail must take all of these factors into account whether you can forecast tail it time to make any useful warnings it's a little bit questionable whether it's worth doing because there isn't much people can do in preparation for a hailstorm you can you can put put your car in the garage maybe in Austria the pilots of the Heil defense Association are getting ready for the next storm when it comes they will fly straight into it the pilot checking his plane knows what is informed a braking hail storm exerts pressures on light aircraft that go far beyond the normal safety margins of everyday flying on the radar the buildup of storm cells is easily seen the clouds that could bring hailstones a colored yellow orange France Gruber has been fighting hail for 30 years he's well aware of just how quickly the weather can change [Music] the Moose much concierge nails and mimosa fluke take a Shawn for KVM tab of Nunavut and piece of Radha the safety key between state Allah [Music] the pilots will be flying right into the storm cloud it's part of a bold plan to outdo nature and modify the weather in days gone by people here put black candles in their windows during a hailstorm all recited the Rosary last week marked on this is a publication garden Nitra cadence and on Puebla wisdom timid monarchy got beaten in loud now darkish the sweater for tiramisu [Music] Donn Hallman octane trim and broken to him was he flew a package kilo at a time and so for some time the status of a time this gift and so gennady's flew a baton this has the came delight there so we been approached his own duty hopes to unlock to whom people are considered the Hale pilots work is controversial many people doubt that their attempts to influence the weather will have any effect others even see it as dangerous interference in a natural process [Music] in America there have been attempts to influence hailstorms with acoustic signals farmers have invested large sums in radar-guided hail cannons that are supposed to prevent hail storms with a loud noise hail cannons are fairly popular in some areas they do make a loud noise and some people believe that they work the scientists can see no reason why they should work the parts of the clouds where hail grows is several kilometres away from the cannon there's no reason for it to influence the winds in the storm and any significant amount at all [Music] the people of ancient Egypt were under no illusion that they could change the weather they simply accepted the punishment meted out by God the Lord said to Moses send therefore now and gather thy cattle and all that thou hast in the field for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field the hail shall come down upon them and they shall die God warmed the Egyptians but Pharaoh was not ready to believe him [Music] then God showed the Egyptians his power the innocent perished because they refused to listen because they resisted this knowledge and resisted Yahweh the problem in ancient Egypt the plague of hail if you read the Old Testament it wasn't only hail there was this massive hailstorm there's also thunder and lightning and a huge deluge of rain as well and in the desert rain is normally a good thing because it helps the crops to grow but here it was just so heavy it would cause flooding and it would have damaged the crops I was in Jordan a few years ago the week before I was there there was a flash rainstorm of thunderstorm in Jordan which caused flash floods and people were drowned tourists were drowned so these events do occur and they're rare events but when they happen they can be very dramatic and very severe in the Alps - they don't know whether storms will come in the form of hail or as torrential downpours it's determined by updrafts and the temperature the results are often catastrophic climate change means more and more sudden and devastating rain storms in the mountains people are asking how much longer they will be able to live in the Alps this question drives the work of Professor johannes Huebel of the institute of mountain risk engineering in vienna he and his team of engineers are trying to develop ways of defying the mountain weather he knows that climate change is widening the gulf between dry areas where it hardly ever rains and the zones where it rains too much too much in too short a time he and his team are testing devices that measure rainfall in real time not just average values over a 24-hour period this is the only way of monitoring accurately the amount of damage that a rainstorm is doing and of raising the alarm before the worst happens the cans in a kilometer to a kilometer in Vietnam stopped opens a notice on the shining again out or even flake state this way though it is raking transit Newton Isaac Newton intensive leader Clark's feeling also any milk per week million to lessen the burden when damage breaking they've warming and my own to comment and it's the potent piled America for whether there is a risk it missing end so 90 millimeter in a fantasy me new nano this is very important or hit the stone [Music] the surging waters of a mountain stream can rapidly become an unpredictable uncontrollable force a force strong enough to wash away hillsides to destroy bridges and uproot trees and sweep boulders downstream [Music] the team from the Institute of mountain risk engineering is studying just what severe storms are capable of a few days ago there was a torrential downpour here in the Gaston Mountains the experts know exactly how much rain came down now they are measuring how much rock it dislodged their great fear is the overwhelming force of a mudslide or a rock avalanche in their laboratory at wheal the engineers are trying to recreate a natural disaster they want to find out exactly what happens during a landslide and how the massive forces involved can be measured [Applause] can this simulated mudslide shed any light on the real-life destruction in the mountains how much energy is unleashed how much debris do landslips and avalanches carry with them [Music] the scientists discover that the higher specific gravity of boulders and stones makes a rocky Vilanch six times more destructive than the same volume of water a landslide thunders down into a valley gathering speed as it goes any debris that isn't carried along by the landslide is buried beneath it as shown by these small polystyrene balls if they want to test similar events in the mountains the scientists have to develop instruments that can stand up to tons of pressure this is a test site in the four albergue region special cameras will record every stage of the test the scientists keep their distance the outcome of the test is too unpredictable this buffer will measure the pressures that any existing buildings bridge pillars and mountain roads would have to withstand 1,500 cubic meters of water will be released from a reservoir and channeled down the stony slope an artificial mud and rock slide that shows just how destructive nature can be once unleashed the combined power of the mountains and the weather can end in disaster [Music] landslides don't normally happen in a controlled situation a rock Avalanche took the occupants of this house by surprise as they slipped not all of them survived [Music] nowadays 40% of the total annual rainfall in the Alps falls in just 12 days sometimes it's concentrated in just a few square kilometers that's hundreds of liters an hour here at laughing bar near HOF gastein professor Hebrew and his colleague freed Rashad are checking a structure their team has developed they want to tame the storms and hold back the mudslides before they found her into the valley [Music] three weeks earlier a real drama unfolded here in just a few minutes heavy rain mixed with hail caused a rock and mudslide that blocked the entire valley the equivalent of hundreds of truckloads of Earth was swept down from the mountains as vine quitters chibita am I'm Schmidt knack with actually are built this C store in this variant is massive skip it Oscar talk taught you know F on filter Minuten is the sconce of an oil common oil firm of fifty cubic meter Angus T Atlantic hundred twenty thousand cubic meter faced of varnish Anakin don't Rancic Milton Isaac Newton [Music] it's a technique Mia and Keisha be common to food than the our list we began at the digital image processing Institute part of uranium research in Graz remote sensing specialists assess satellite images and observe the effects of climate change worldwide they watch hillsides that slip mountains that move all the places where heavy rain has left its mark in a deviation cone of animals in space this visor hang would soon as a moon the hunter returns int the tile visor Hasenpfeffer to Tom or the hoist official to Tom who father with her father Shaitan can see I could a country hadn't want man comes off 34 he s target antivenin even special barriers like the one at La Fea bath cap provide complete protection he does this for pasa to see the cancer or chakra flows missed or the blues laughter and I'm an advisor these are in Linea here want the house vehicle this for others come on here Hudak in Rosa Tyler these are the poor resolution of the satellite images makes it hard to see the full extent of the destruction but to the experts it's quite clear [Music] all over Austria there are declared danger zones but even in places were all new building is banned there are people living whose families have been there for centuries they're rarely prepared to leave yesterday holding Inuit and in Italian the flaky mama Oh blameless Sydenham the gansan shoots Muhammad emitted Tim laughs that is a it's the hundred saying so instantons in canaan Annabeth's and geese and Botanica mission is there a mrs in incheon and mission a puffin voice Moscow says your this is chic side [Music] in biblical times people had no choice but to accept whatever fate brought servants cattle the fruits of the field all were affected by hail storms the weather destroyed everything in the downpours and hail storms of today what part does man play how far we are to blame for our latter day plagues is a matter of dispute but one thing is certain we can't blame the rain and hail storms on the wrath of God and unlike the ancient Egyptians we may be able to do something to prevent the worst of the storms [Music] the evidence we have from Egyptian literature is that the Egyptians thought the weather was sent by their gods so the act of the ancient Egyptians had to one God who was the god of thunder and they had another God who was the god of lightning and another God was a God of rain so if they had gentle rain they would have believed their pleas their God but this heavy hail stone and thunder they would have believed they're displeased their God and this was a punishment on them that's how they would have regarded this Styria in Austria the Heil pilots aren't interested in praying they want to act they're taking the weather on and risking their lives not everyone agrees with what they're doing too little is known about what goes on inside the clouds [Music] at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado they've been trying to find out for years exactly what happens inside clouds during a storm Charles Knight is conducting an experiment to see how rain and hail are created he introduces water vapor into a chest cold to minus 20 degrees centigrade the normal air temperature several kilometres up this creates an artificial cloud the air is soon saturated with moisture but nothing happens there's no precipitation neither rain nor snow nor hail then Charles makes dry ice out of carbon dioxide under high pressure carefully he crumbles it into the chest the cloud changes stimulated by the particles of dry ice the water vapor crystallizes around them forming the first grains of ice rain and hail form only when there are enough ice nuclei in the air [Music] the Styrian Hale pilots are applying this finding in real life [Music] they take off when other pilots are seeking safety on the ground and they fly to the very place other pilots are trying to avoid they're hoping to get as close as possible to the storm they can expect sudden powerful gusts of wind when they fly right under a storm cell the updrafts can be so strong that their engines cut out these updrafts are also indispensable for the creation of hailstones in germany the institut Fatma spheric physics at mites has a unique wind tunnel it can simulate atmospheric conditions at any altitude right now it's set to ground level 21 degrees centigrade with no wind physicist nadine Fon Blum switches on the generators they are needed to simulate the weather conditions that are typical of clouds she's about to increase the altitude nadine wants to make hailstones and study their characteristics the temperature in the wind tunnel is down to freezing point that means she's reached about 2,000 meters a powerful updraft just like in a storm stops the particles from falling to the base of the tunnel and keeps them where they can still be observed nadine fills a syringe with silver iodide the same chemical that is used by the hail pilots [Music] [Music] she's been working for months to get the right balance between pressure temperature and humidity she has to keep adjusting the updraft so the particles stay in sight she's trying to find answers to some puzzling questions what exactly are the conditions in which hailstones form what might they contain and what substances are they made of this whirling movement shows that the hailstone is beginning to grow it's becoming harder to control in the chamber [Music] something similar takes place in the sky clouds saturated with moisture often travel hundreds of kilometers without shedding a single drop of water [Music] they only start to do so when they encounter ice particles which cause condensation the moisture then attaches itself to every foreign body in the air for example two so-called aerosol particles these come from industrial wastes they may be dust grains of sand or exhaust from jet engines because of the cold most of these tiny aerosol droplets turned to ice [Music] [Applause] [Music] back in Colorado Charles Knight can show exactly how rain and hail formed several kilometers in the sky in his cold store Charles places drops of water on a tray at minus 20 degrees they're still liquid in clouds water like this is known as supercooled drops they only freeze when he adds a particle of ice in this case a snow crystal [Music] the experiment makes it clear if the ice particles created in nature become heavy enough they fall to earth as hailstones if they cross warmer air on the way down they melt and fall to earth as rain unless updrafts send them back up into the layers of colder air [Music] at these Heights they remain frozen and they also grow perhaps to the size of a human fist which is too big to melt before it reaches the ground Charles is studying the interior of these large hailstones to find out how they were formed he saws a hailstone in half not an easy task when it's minus 20 and you're wearing thick gloves he smoothes the surface of the cut hailstone and glues it onto a sheet of glass then he slices off the thin layer in order to examine it under polarized light [Music] coloration clearly shows up the different rings the hailstone has repeatedly returned to the atmospheric layer of supercooled drops it has gone down and then back up again the numbers of rings in a hailstone tells you something about how often the environment the growth environment changed hailstones themselves grow in a variety of locations when they wouldn't when the vertical wind velocity and the storm is faster than the fall velocity of the hailstorm that goes up and vice versa hail stone goes down towards the ground to towards a warmer temperature back in styria austria the updrafts helped the hail pilots when they're flying beneath the eye of the storm that's when they switch on their burners the flames spread silver iodide and billions of tiny particles are scattered into the storm clouds each particle is the potential kernel of a hailstone if the pilots are late arriving they use additional burners it speeds things up and sews even more silver iodide particles amongst the storm clouds the pilots are vaccinating the clouds by injecting them with a large number of condensing particles the more particles they inject the more widely the mass of water will be distributed rather than concentrating in a few heavy hailstones the small hailstones that do form will quickly melt as they fall to earth a bolt of lightning has put the radar station out of action France Gruber and his pilots must rely on experience with so much rain on the airstrip the planes can't land they have to keep on flying their mission continues [Music] this time their sortie seems to have done some good it rained heavily invites and surrounding areas but the downfall did not last long and was not particularly destructive they managed to prevent hail apart from a few small stones that were caught in the fruit farmers net many of the farmers are firm believers in the protection of their hail defense Association but scientists are still divided about weather modification be it hail prevention all rain making I think it's dangerous modifying the weather if making rain or suppressing hail there are always complicated secondary results of what you do and and so you have to be very careful about using it rain making for instance there's always the worry of not just making the rain where you want to but of depriving somebody downwind of their rain event and all all of these issues making more snow in the mountains causes more avalanches all of these all of these efforts have pluses and minuses that need to be balanced and very few of them are very predictable at the moment the Styrian hail pilots return home safely their mission was a success they believe that justifies their interference with nature we have a sweet honest debate the legality currently at the cosmetology miss-ghetti maha TT troponin Dhaka and walk name into on to eat a magnet and keep this known vector somebody's agony listen from Fearne is the second the Hema yeah okay brother they are fighting something that is seemingly uncontrollable the weather but even if their system works these pilots can do no more than alleviate the worst effects of the storms in the future we must combat the causes of climate disasters the days are gone when people believe they face divine punishment and were powerless to act [Music] the storms were so heavy that Pharaoh finally despaired and begged for mercy he summoned Moses and Aaron and acknowledged his guilt entreat the Lord for it is enough that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail the people of Egypt were used to hardship and natural disasters it would never have occurred to them to try to alter the course of the weather they accepted disaster as divine punishment the will of God had to be done [Music] in the ancient world they were much more accustomed than we are that when natural conditions are tough people died and they just accepted this this was a way of life as it were they were all part of nature they would see animals dying all the time and then humans were dying when there were plagues or when there were famines and this was just something that they had to accept and they couldn't do very much about we have to accept the world is the way it is all the best science suggests that global warming is happening because of carbon dioxide emissions so we then have a challenge and we have to say what we don't know of this do we let it happen because the consequences will be sea level rises millions of people would displace probably millions of people killed so we know there's consequences and we can do something about it but we have to have the political will to do something about it and when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased he sinned yet more and hardened his heart he and his servants the heart of Pharaoh was hardened neither would he let the children of Israel go [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music]

Channel: hazards and catastrophes

Views: 461,134

Rating: 4.6009502 out of 5

Keywords: Biblical Plagues science documentary, Biblical Plagues full documentary, Biblical Plagues documentary, Biblical Plagues earth documentary, Biblical Plagues, Biblical Plagues Bible, Biblical Plagues Bible Documentary, Biblical Plagues 10 Plagues, Biblical Plagues Humankind Documentary, Biblical Plagues History Documentary, Biblical Plagues Short Episode, Biblical Plagues coronavirus, Biblical Plagues Hazards & Catastrophes, Biblical Plagues Report, Biblical Plagues Sandstorms

Id: AFuJCBkOCd8

Length: 49min 29sec (2969 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2017