Freak summer hailstorm buries Mexican city under five feet of ice

A blanket of hail and ice covered streets in the Mexican city of Guadalajara after a heavy storm hit the area on June 30. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Jorge David Arias Flores/Reuters/The Washington Post)

It’s summer in Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s most populous towns, which made what happened there over the weekend all the more surprising.

Sunday morning, residents woke to their roads, yards and even cars buried under more than three feet of icy slush from a freak hailstorm that had blanketed the city.

On Twitter, Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said Civil Protection personnel quickly began cleanup, digging vehicles out from beneath the sea of hail and pumping out floodwaters once it had started to melt.

Luego de una inusual granizada en distintas colonias del Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara, principalmente en Rancho Blanco y en la Zona Industrial, personal de Protección Civil Jalisco atendió la situación desde la madrugada. pic.twitter.com/EZ0XQhhIW6

— Enrique Alfaro (@EnriqueAlfaroR) June 30, 2019

“I’ve never seen such scenes in Guadalajara,” Alfaro told AFP.

“Then we ask ourselves if climate change is real. These are never-before-seen natural phenomenons,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

In some places, the hail was up to five feet deep, AFP reported.

Residents in the mountainous area, which sits about 350 miles west of Mexico City, reported damage to nearly 200 homes and businesses, according to AFP, and some 50 vehicles were swept away by the heavy ice and rain. No injuries or casualties were reported, Alfaro said.