Stop Hail from Above

Nissan demonstrates it new sonic cannon designed specifically for preventing hail from forming over their car lots. Hail damage costs car manufactures millions of dollars in damage, each storm. So Nissan came up with this nice little device.

Nissan demonstrated its new device designed to protect its parking lot from a hailstorm for WLBT News on Tuesday. It is a cannon that sends sonic waves up to 50,000 feet in the air to keep hailstones from forming.

There are more than 400 such machines in operation in the world, and this is the ninth one installed in the United States. They are made in Canada and are used primarily to protect crops. It works by using its own radar to detect the conditions that are favorable for hail to form.

It automatically activates when its own weather radar system detects conditions favorable for the formation of hail. It fires every 5.5 seconds, making a sound we know can be heard at least five miles away from the Nissan plant near Canton. It then starts sending sound waves into the cloud every five-and-a-half seconds.

The sound at ground zero is about 120 decibels, or about the same as a tornado warning siren. Workers are installing fences around two of the machines in the 140-acre parking lot at Nissan and filling the fences with hay in an effort to reduce the sound level.

Unfortunately the cannon is loud, but perhaps the audible sound portion can be suppressed in the following versions. Nissan hasn’t given a price for the Hail Suppression System nor have they mentioned any plans to sell the cannon to rival car dealers. A portable cannon would be nice for individual use but then again, it might be cheaper to just build a garage.