Okay, so the news have been going round all day that snow fell on the capital of Ekiti state, Nigeria during a downpour which began around 4pm local time on Saturday 26th March with residents (who happen to be mostly students of Ekiti State University and Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti) being excited about the occurrence.
This is great news but I beg to differ. From what I see in the picture displayed, these are perhaps best described as hailstones and not snow. It is almost impossible for snow to fall in a tropical region that's just few degrees away from the equator, all things being equal and normal climatic conditions for the region being same. Except for some unexplained phenomenon, this is not out of the ordinary.
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| Similar depiction of the hailstones pictured above |
"Snow is made up of one or more tiny ice
crystals that come together to form the intricate and unique shapes of a
snowflake," according to ABC weather specialist and presenter Graham Creed,
"Whereas, hail is a frozen raindrop and is generally a lot bigger than a pure crystal of ice."
It is normal to witness hailstones in Nigeria as there have been several cases of such in Jos, Northern Nigeria based on unusual changes in the atmospheric weather conditions at the time.