HOT

It's been so hot. And not just peaking in the middle of the day and cooling off around the edges, but just hot, all the time. The low temperatures are in the upper 70's and come right before dawn. Around 11PM last night the heat index was still 97F. Immediately after the sun starts to rise the temperatures climb. You can pull up Weather Underground and just watch the temperature go up. And up. It's sort of grimly entertaining. Unfortunately, the humidity is always 90-something % at that time so the heat index is astronomical. For instance, right now...

9:30 AM.
Temperature: 88.3F
Humidity: 80%
Dew point: 81F
Heat index: 107F
Wind: 0 mph

9:42 AM
Temperature: 88.7F
Humidity: 79%
Dew point: 81F
Heat index: 108F
Wind: 0 mph

That's a pretty uncomfortable situation. Note the dew point of 81F. The temperature is supposed to be 101 today (it was 100 yesterday) and the heat index will be much higher. The last few days the heat index has topped out at 112.

We're under an excessive heat warning and have been for a couple days. We're in good company: it extends over the entirety of Mississippi and Louisiana, most of Alabama and Arkansas, and half of Oklahoma and Texas.

Of course, it's worse in parts of Iran, where the heat index reached an unbelievable 164F yesterday. Lord have mercy!

Summer Lightning

The next two are subtle, but you can see the edge of the shelf cloud approaching.

Rare Wintry Mix

About once a winter we see something in the way of frozen precipitation. This winter (2014-2015) we hadn't seen anything yet, and with the daffodils blooming it seemed as though our chances were slim.

Yesterday the high was 82 and today we have barely nudged above freezing (it's currently 29 in the middle of the day). A more than 50 degree difference in the space of much less than 24 hours is quite extreme!

This morning the drizzle finally changed to a wintry mix and it's been going on for about 3 hours now. The children were quite excited.

Horrendous Dew Point

(click to enlarge)

I took this screen shot of Weather Underground just a little bit ago. I had to share it. LOOK at the dew point! That's horribly oppressive! I think I'll just stay inside today.

Hail Storm with Golf-Ball Sized Hail

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.

 

Ahhhh...

Just a quick post to note that it is almost 9 AM and 65 degrees with 77% humidity outside! It's going to warm up, of course, but we should not have a heat index over 100 and we should also get some breeze today. Thank God! I know that summer is not over, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's SO nice to get a break.