Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hail today

kw: weather, hail


This isn't the biggest hail I've seen, but it is the first at this home. The biggest stone visible, the one on the step stone in the middle, is about half an inch, or 1.2 cm.

While the weather was nice all afternoon, after a calming rain in the morning, we heard there would be a thunderstorm about dinnertime. My wife and I had just finished some yard work when it got windy. It was about 6:30 pm. Gray clouds had been building only a short time when "bang! bang!", we began to hear hail hitting the Bilco door. It only lasted a few minutes, and all the stones were less than a centimeter. After a short pause, it started up, dropped a few hundred larger stones, and it was all over. This is the result.

I'm glad that's all there was. A couple decades ago, while living in South Dakota, we had hail as large as five inches (13 cm). We had to replace the roof, the cars were badly dented, and I got hit by a three-inch (7+ cm) ball that left quite a bruise. Small hail like this is almost a relief!

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