It started to thunder this afternoon as we were playing outside. A loud rolling thunder that sent Maria Victoria running to find me on the front steps where I was reading the Catholic novel Fatherless. Then came the lightening...and a few large rain drops. By this time we were all standing in or near the garage with its door open. When it started to hail, I sent the neighbor boy home and Daniel pulled the van into the garage. The hail stopped and the rain let up a bit after about 2 minutes and we considered pulling the van back out so that the rain might wash off some of the dust...Good thing we didn't!!! Two more minutes later, the sky broke open. We ran from back porch to front porch watching the ground come alive with little white balls hopping as they hit. At times the wind flung the hail at us as we huddled in the doorway of the porch. The largest stone I saw was the size of a large grape, though Daniel thought some were the size of golf balls.
We went to look up "hail" in some of our books.
We called to my parents (five miles west of town) to see if they had any hail; they didn't.
We called to my aunt and uncle (20 miles east of town) to see if they (with their large orchard full of ripe and soon-to-be-ripe peaches) had any hail; they didn't and we said more prayers that the storm would stay far, far away from them.
We lamented the fact that our garden which was looking sooo good with soon-to-be-ready squash, hundreds of tomatoes flowers on the 11 tomato bushes, which we had just been proudly showing off to extended family only 4 hours prior...we lamented that it would be ruined.
We watched the hail mound up around the houses, cover the roofs, streets, and lawns.
We thought it was lessening only to see it pounding harder moments later.
We prayed for it to stop.
We prayed for the farmers' crops to be spared.
We took lots and lots of pictures and videos.
Then finally it stopped. And out we went to check the damage, to explore the neighborhood, to see the beautiful sky and the eerie steam, to chat with other curious neighbors, to wade through the icy cold streams in the streets and the pond in the back of our yard, and to take more pictures of the aftermath of the worst hailstorm I personally have ever seen. It rained at least 3 inches in about an hour, plus all the hail that doesn't register in the rain gauge.
The first 3 pictures are of our front walk and lawn as the hail piles up...especially in my pot of pansies.
The next 3 are of our garden: corn, tomatoes, and squash. I wish I had "before" photos.
We read that hail is formed in layers as it falls, gets rain on it, is flung back up by the wind and freezes that covering of rain, falls again, is covered with rain, flung up....and finally is heavy enough to fall to the ground. So this picture shows the layers of the hail, especially if you click on it to enlarge it.
The combination of the roof's slant and metal made these neighbors' collect quite a pile of hail!
We went to look up "hail" in some of our books.
We called to my parents (five miles west of town) to see if they had any hail; they didn't.
We called to my aunt and uncle (20 miles east of town) to see if they (with their large orchard full of ripe and soon-to-be-ripe peaches) had any hail; they didn't and we said more prayers that the storm would stay far, far away from them.
We lamented the fact that our garden which was looking sooo good with soon-to-be-ready squash, hundreds of tomatoes flowers on the 11 tomato bushes, which we had just been proudly showing off to extended family only 4 hours prior...we lamented that it would be ruined.
We watched the hail mound up around the houses, cover the roofs, streets, and lawns.
We thought it was lessening only to see it pounding harder moments later.
We prayed for it to stop.
We prayed for the farmers' crops to be spared.
We took lots and lots of pictures and videos.
Then finally it stopped. And out we went to check the damage, to explore the neighborhood, to see the beautiful sky and the eerie steam, to chat with other curious neighbors, to wade through the icy cold streams in the streets and the pond in the back of our yard, and to take more pictures of the aftermath of the worst hailstorm I personally have ever seen. It rained at least 3 inches in about an hour, plus all the hail that doesn't register in the rain gauge.
The first 3 pictures are of our front walk and lawn as the hail piles up...especially in my pot of pansies.
The next 3 are of our garden: corn, tomatoes, and squash. I wish I had "before" photos.
We read that hail is formed in layers as it falls, gets rain on it, is flung back up by the wind and freezes that covering of rain, falls again, is covered with rain, flung up....and finally is heavy enough to fall to the ground. So this picture shows the layers of the hail, especially if you click on it to enlarge it.
The combination of the roof's slant and metal made these neighbors' collect quite a pile of hail!
The clouds that brought us the hail.
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