Hail!

[dxmachina]

I went down to my usual spot next to the airport to have lunch. I'd been hoping to catch some air show previews, but the clouds had moved in and the skies had started to drip, so I settled for just eating my lunch and reading. I did catch sight of the Red Arrow aircraft parked at the RI ANG facility, along with their C-17 support plane.

Then a thunderstorm moved in, with thunder and lightning and huge gobbets of water falling from the sky. The wide-openness of the airport made for a perfect view of the proceedings, one that I was quite enjoying. That is until the hail started falling. Tiny pebbles, at first, rattling off the roof and sides of the truck. Two different rattles, actually, as the ones that hit the fiberglass bed lid made a different sound than the ones that hit metal. As the storm intensified, visibility dropped to almost nothing, and the chunks of ice got bigger. Eventually the proverbial golf ball-sized stones started hitting the truck. I don't recall ever seeing hail that big before. That was about the time I decided to go see it I could find some top cover to park the truck under before one came through the windshield. I spent the rest of my lunch parked in a grove of trees.

And it occurs to me that I left many of my windows open at home. D'oh!

Comments

[fufaraw]

Hail is scary stuff. H and the boys were working on a French drain and only had, like, two feet of finishing and were pushing on through the thundershower when hail started falling. Well, falling is relative. "Hurled" actually seemed more accurate. The hailstones were 2 3/4 inches across, and looked like frozen cauliflower (they saved some in the freezer and we measured). Oh yeah, they ran for the house. Scary stuff.

How's your truck?

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed any dents yet, but I haven't really looked. Ignorance is bliss. We don't generally get hail around these parts, and when we do it's pea-sized. This was something.