Storms

It's been storming all week. Since Tuesday, it's been bright and sunny each morning, about 90 in the afternoon, and by 6 PM storms roll in. There's been a couple of good ones with magnificent lightning and strong winds. When I drove in to work on Friday, there were two empty Fedex semi trailers laying on their side in one of our parking lots. I don't know how strong the wind was on Thursday night, but it must have been pretty strong to tip over two semi trailers!

Well, last night we rented a couple of movies for the girls to watch: Felicity (American Girl) and Dreamer. (By the way, both were really good.) Anyway, we sat down to watch the movies, but it was begining to storm and there was an incredible amount of lightning. So, we decided to turn off all of the electronic stuff and unplug it. We made cookies and watched the storms roll in.

They really started to look nasty, so we turned on the radio and found out that there had been a tornado about 30 miles west of us and the same storm was headed our way shortly. As the storm approached the warnings got more severe. So, we grabbed a flashlight, radio and batteries, some drinks, snacks, and toys for the kids and headed to our walk-in closet to ride out the storm. We said a few prayers for us and our friends and then sat back and listened to the radio while the kids played.

The rain came down in buckets (5 inches in 90 minutes) and it started to hail. Having been through this experience when we lived in Wisconsin, it didn't seem so bad. There was some hail, but it didn't seem that there was too much and it didn't seem to be striking too hard.


SMACK! The wall shook behind us. Anna looked at me and I looked at her. What was that?

THUNK! It sounded liked someone was hitting our roof with a sledge hammer.

THUNK! BUNK! SMACK! Is that hail? It couldn't be... it would have to be huge to sound like that.

Over the radio we hear, "We're now receiving reports of tennis ball and baseball sized hail."

SMACK! THUNK! Now, our house doesn't really have any interior protected closets. All of the closets touch an outside wall. So, we elected to hang out in the one on the northeast corner of the house where two solid brick walls come together and the nearest window is in the next room. We were sitting on a cermaic tile floor over a concrete slab with our backs to a brick wall. When the hail struck the brick wall, it shook the floor. That was pretty impressive. We heard over the radio that the hail was forming at 41,000 feet. So, imagine a baseball sized hunk of ice propelling down from 41,000 feet and hitting your house. Yikes!

When the hail stopped, I waited a few minutes to make sure it was clear and dashed out to the yard to grab a sample to put in the freezer. It had already melted some because it was raining buckets and it was about 70 outside, but when I measured it with my caliper, it came in at 2.94". This is the biggest hail I've ever seen in my life. Here's a picture:



In my hand:



When these puppies hit the ground they make a little crater. Most of them were about 2 inches deep and 3 to 3.5 inches wide: