Massive chunks of ice pelt US neighbourhood

Large chunks of ice fell from the sky in Iowa, smashing through a US woman’s roof and tearing through nearby trees.

Authorities said they were unsure of the ice’s origin but have theorised the chunks either fell from a plane or naturally accumulated high in the atmosphere - both rare occurrences.

“It sounded like a bomb,” said Jan Kenkel, 78. She said she was standing in her kitchen in Dubuque when an ice chunk crashed through her roof early yesterday morning. “I jumped about a foot!”

She discovered a messy pile of insulation, bits of ceiling, splintered wood and about 50 pounds (22.5 kilograms) of solid ice.

Neighbours Karle and Mary Beth Wigginton said they heard a loud “whoosh” coming through the trees, discovering several large chunks of ice in front of their home in this city in north-western Iowa in the country’s Midwest.

“I could see where branches were shredded, which told me it was definitely coming out of the sky,” Karle Wigginton said.

He estimated the original chunk of ice was the size of a basketball. “It was pure white,” he said. “The main parts I picked up were very smooth.”

Elizabeth Cory, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators would to try to determine the source of the ice.

“It is very uncommon for something like this to come from an aircraft,” Cory said. “That is really unusual if it is pure white ice, especially at this time of year.”

Occasionally, aircraft latrines discharge contents at altitude, resulting in chunks of descending ice.

Planes also sometimes accumulate ice on their edges in certain atmospheric conditions, including high altitude and extreme moisture, said pilot Robert Grierson, manager of Dubuque Regional Airport.

The moisture involved in such a scenario could have come from the tops of strong thunderstorms.

However, Dubuque had clear skies at the time the ice fell, said Andy Ervin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport.