Monday, April 4, 2011

Oh Hail!

We had a hail storm yesterday evening!  It's the worst I've ever witnessed. I took Jim his supper and left around 18:15 because the sky was getting pretty dark and it was beginning to thunder.

When I got home, I went out on the eastern deck to watch the drama! It was about 88 degrees, but quite windy, and the sky continued to darken. After I'd been watching only about five minutes, large and sparse drops of rain began to fall. Dad was grilling pork chops on the Big Green Egg, and came out and got them as it began to rain a little harder. Suddenly, it came driving down, and the wind blew every which way. Monnie came out to join me, and it wasn't three minutes before the rain turned into small bits of hail, which fell harder and harder, and then grew (in the space of maybe two minutes) to the size of golfballs! They came shooting out of the sky, and hit like bullets on the deck and cement. The yard was hopping with white balls of ice, appearing, for all the world, like a golf course with a million golfers putting at once and missing the hole! The noise was incredible too – reminded me of fire crackers or guns.


On it came, truly a "driving hail." Any vehicles driving by just crawled past – the visibility must have been almost nil. As far as the eye could see hail pellets pummeled the earth. Katie Glasgow texted Monnie saying they were at her in-laws and two windows had been broken! Dad ran and pulled his rig inside the garage.

And then it was over. Just like that, the hail ceased and became a sort of light mist, and a few minutes later, nothing at all. The clouds moved on, though the wind has remained. In that short space of time, the temperature had fallen over 20 degrees (which explains the incredible hail)!

This morning the thermometer read 42! There is a very chilly wind (I think from the east).

Here are some pictures from this morning :–

Hail damage on the tulips by the front walk,

the bleeding heart is growing, 

 a little bud, not more than 1-1/2" long,

branches from the Austrees that broke during the storm, 

 henbit beginning to bloom,

 the lilacs still growing strong,


just about ready to plant,

and Eightball says hi. :-)

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