Residents in Guadalajara woke to a good chunk of their town covered in more than three feet of ice after a freak hailstorm blanketed the city.
One of Mexico’s busiest cities, Guadalajara, saw thick, slushy ice creep into local homes and businesses overnight. Ice coverage in some parts of the city made roads impassable and many other areas inaccessible.
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro took to Twitter to provide updates on the hailstorm, stating that civil protection workers had already begun to clean up by digging out the cars and sweeping the roads
“I’ve never seen such scenes in Guadalajara,” Alfaro said to AFP.
“Then we ask ourselves if climate change is real. These are never-before-seen natural phenomenons,” said Alfaro. “It’s incredible.”
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Residents began to pile out and play in the ice and snow in the city which saw average temperatures in June of around 31 degrees Celsius.
Jorge David Arias who was visiting family at the time of the storm said he and his relatives had never seen anything like it.
Located about 563 km away from Mexico City, the city has had no record of being hit with a storm this heavy, despite the occasional occurrence of seasonal hailstorms.
At least 50 vehicles had been swept away by the flood of ice while almost 200 homes and businesses were reported to have been damaged by the hail according to AFP.
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— With files from Reuters