Roads were blocked completely after hail and heavy rain in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state in western Mexico.
Residents saw roads blocked, yards and even cars buried under more than three feet of ice.
On Twitter, Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said Civil Protection personnel started to clean up, digging vehicles out from the sea of hail and pumping out flood waters once it had started to melt.
“Then we ask ourselves if climate change is real. These are never-before-seen natural phenomenons,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez said he had “never seen” such a heavy blitz of hail in the area before.
“I went there to evaluate the situation and I witnessed scenes which I had never seen before: hail accumulation more than a meter high, and then we wonder if climate change exists,” he said.
Streets became rivers of dense moving hail and several people had to be rescued from the roofs of their cars.
Many cars were damaged after being buried under the piles of hail. But, no deaths or injury marked, officials said.
Emergency workers and city employees, with assistance from the army, worked really hard throughout the night and morning to clear the city road.
Several residents said the hailstorm was “unprecedented” in the region.
Hail forms when a water droplet is picked up by updrafts of warm air in a thunderstorm travels well above the freezing level and then freezes, according to the National Weather Service.
“As the frozen droplet begins to fall…carried by cold downdrafts…it may thaw as it moves into warmer air toward the bottom of the thunderstorm,” the NWS states. “Our little half-frozen droplet may also get picked up again by another updraft…carrying it back into the very cold air and re-freezing it.”
“The presence of large hail indicates very strong updrafts and downdrafts within the thunderstorm,” the NWS states.