I could see some severe cells approaching on the radar and
one looked like it was going to hit us dead-on. I went out on the porch
to wait. The lightning was almost continuous but the wind hadn't picked
up yet. The sirens went off and added to the excitement (half of us
were on the porch, waiting). Eventually there was a bit of breeze, then
it got stronger. In the distance we could hear a roaring sound, growing
louder. I wasn't worried about a tornado and thought it was too loud for
the wind associated with a downdraft. Assuming that the coming rain
must be incredibly heavy I went to the doorway to watch. A few drops
started coming down and then I realized that the sound was probably
hail. Another moment and it was upon us. It was absolutely deafening. It
sounded like the end of the world. I could see massive hailstones
hitting the street and exploding. I looked at our van and car and
realized that there was nothing I could do. I made the sign of the cross
over them and asked God to protect them. [Foolishly I didn't do the
same thing for the house.] The hail was not only large - most of it golf
ball-sized - but there was a ton of it. The ground started to turn
white. The wind was blowing very hard and the hail was exploding through
the open screen door and starting to cover the porch. When we opened
the door to the house some of the hail blew inside.
[Pause
to add that we're going to go check the church and the hall in a few
minutes. Oh boy...it's like, all windows...I'll update when we get back.
[UPDATE: SEE BELOW]]
After it had been hailing for
about a minute I remembered the camera and dashed inside to get it. I
filmed the next 2 minutes of the storm. The video doesn't do it justice
because it's so dark. Turn the volume up until you're covering your ears
and that's what it sounded like.
[Stolen from my regular blog]
As soon as it died
down (about 2 minutes after I stopped filming) I ran out to gather up
some hail to measure. I photographed it next to a tape measure. When the
rain had stopped a little bit too I ran out and checked the cars. There
are probably dings in the metal car bodies but the windows are all
intact!! I can't believe it. They were completely exposed. Thanks be to
God! Remember I mentioned that I should have done the same for the
house? Well, we lost two windows in the house and have a leak in the
roof near the fireplace. Live and learn. I estimate the entire hailstorm
lasted about 5 minutes. It felt like an eternity.
UPDATE:
Well, we went to check the church and hall (ALL of us, despite it being
past bedtime) and, believe it or not, the church is FINE. Not one crack
in one window. And our church is practically all windows! We were most
worried about the west side (that's the direction the hail was coming
from) but here it is, sound as ever:
Not quite so lucky at the hall, but even there only lost one window in the kitchen:
We
drove around a few blocks on the way home and saw a few things. There
were two streetlamps which had the exterior portion blown down by the
hail...but the light was still on. Amazing. Here's one:
In
one shopping area a few smart people pulled their cars right up on the
sidewalk outside the stores. As we drove around we didn't see any
vehicles with broken windows. My theory is that the hail was composed of
ice layers that broke apart easily so the energy of the blow was
absorbed more by the hail (which exploded) than the item it hit.
Unless,
of course, the item being hit is an easily ripped-out screen. All of
our screens except the two on the sheltered east side of the porch were
ripped out by the hail. That explains how so much hail got on the porch.
