HAIL YEAH!!!

Yesterday we had our first big storm of the spring season and as usual I was on the back porch to watch it all come blasting in. This storm was with a system that is going to change things the next few nights and bring back some winter weather. This storm had already created some history for itself as it approached with more warning boxes than I had seen in almost 3 years. The brighter area of the storm in this picture just below center brought more than just a little wind and rain.

As it got closer it looked like it was going to go about a mile north of us but then made a sudden right turn like cells of this nature do sometimes. That put it right over our house and it unloaded with not just wind and rain but with some big stuff falling from the sky. As first the hail stones were marble size but they just kept getting bigger and bigger. Before long the stones were quarter size then more than an inch. The clunking on the side of house and the roof made me wonder what was going to come down next.

The wind picked up to gusts of between 40 and 45 mph and the hail continued to get bigger. After a few minutes some of the stones were as big as golf balls (1 3/4 inches) and you could have used a 9 iron on them. After a few minutes of that it settled down but only for a short period. Another smaller core flew over and unleashed another barrage of hail but the good thing was it was only pea size. In total the hail came down for pretty close to a full 20 minutes before it settled into just rain and lightning.

I braved it enough to go out and pick up a couple of the bigger stones. The biggest stone in this picture is just over an inch and a half but many of them were very close to two inches in diameter. With a 40 mph wind backing them up it definitely would have hurt had you got hit in the head. One county a few counties over got half more than 4 inches in diameter, definitely enough to knock you out if you got hit. Now it has turned cold and temps are expected to be in the 20's during the next few nights. Any flowers out there now better get somebody to hug them for a few days. They're going to need it.