Photo Credit to Mr. Raymond Quirolo. A large hail stone that fell during a brief thunderstorm (5-minute thunderstorm) over the Southern part of the Maltese Islands. The worst-affected areas by this hail storm were Santa Lucija, Tarxien, Luqa, Zejtun (especially Bulebel Industrial Estate) and Delimara from where this hail stone photo was taken. Hail stones of 3cm in diameter were reported making this thunderstorm a severe thunderstorm. The weather situation that formed this thunderstorm is explained here. The weather sounding (first thumbnail) indicated lots of instability and hail formation due to strong winds at all levels of the atmosphere acting to keep rain drops inside the cloud itself forming hail. On the plus side, the strong winds made the same thunderstorm a quick-mover ending within few minutes and depositing `only` 15mm in the worst-effected areas. The lumps of ice in the hail is due to its upward and downward movement cycle inside the thunderstorm cloud falling to the ground only until it is too heavy to stay aloft or the thunderstorm supporting it starts to weaken. The rain radar indicated this hail storm as heavy rain (second thumbnail).