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A leg's broken by hard blows (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

gales

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'hard blows' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both types of natural phenomena as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?

'a leg's broken' is the wordplay.
'broken' indicates anagramming the letters.
'a'+'legs'='alegs'
'alegs' is an anagram of 'GALES'.

'by' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for gales that I've seen before include "Strong winds" , "Weather conditions" , "Force 7 to 10 winds" , "They're force 7 to 10 on the Beaufort scale" , "High winds" .)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.
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