[Note: I rearranged things a bit and posted some rather extensive updates below.]

Wow! You should've seen the hail tonight! Since, it's likely you didn't, here's a photo from my back patio shortly after the hail stopped. The rain was still pouring down like mad.

It's a little difficult to tell just how big those hail stones are. Most of them are probably about 3/4-of-an-inch in diameter. The largest ones are an inch across. The din as they fell was something amazing. I didn't even hear the phone ring when Dad called to ask how bad the storm was 'round these parts. I saw the answering machine light flashing about 10 minutes later and could not figure out why it was flashing since I was sure I'd listened to my messages when I got home.

"What's with those dots running up and down the photo?" you ask. Well, they're drops of water pouring off the patio cover and the shadows of those water drops caused by the flash from my camera. Here's a close-up:

Cool, eh? The wall is about 2 feet away from the edge of the patio cover.

And, then there's the view out the front door.

Normally, you'd just see a concrete path there. Not tonight. And, Friday is our landscaping day so I know all of the sidewalks and paths were swept clear today. Now look at all the debris the hail brought down with it? Luckily, no big branches 'round here. Other parts of town were not nearly so lucky. I just took another look around and the hail is taking a long time to melt. It's been about 2 hours since the storm blew through and my guess is that the hail's only about 50% melted. And, it's warm outside...about 60 °F or so. Wow. What a storm. And, I really wasn't expecting it. I'd heard there was a fair chance of rain this evening. But, this seems a bit much!

UPDATE #1 (March 27th)

'Turns out I was very wrong on Friday night about the severity of the storm in my immediate neighborhood. I was extremely lucky to avoid any damage. But, many of my neighbors were not nearly as lucky. The worst of the damage was to the windows and walls facing west. My townhouse has units attached to both sides and the exposed walls face north and south.

I got up yesterday morning at about 7 and took a walk around with my camera. If you click on a thumbnail, a full-size image will open up in a new browser window.

Looking outside my front door. The sidewalk is almost completely covered by leaves and twigs knocked off trees by the hail. In the foreground is a complimentary newspaper left earlier that day by the AAS and in the background, nearly buried by the debris, is one they left sometime earlier (dunno when).

Two different views of the sidewalk outside my building. What? You don't see a sidewalk? That's pretty much the point!

Under the tree in the middle of the grassy area in front of my house you can see that, despite the 60 degree weather, the hail hadn't melted. About 10 hours had passed since the end of the hail storm. 'Hard to believe the high the day before was in the low 80s, eh? It was.

Here's a view of my garage entrance. The debris is from the pine tree in my back patio. 'Looks like nobody ever uses the garage, doesn't it? Luckily, I do use the garage and my car was nicely sheltered throughout the storm.

This alley is usually just bare concrete. It's amazing how much stuff was blown out of the trees. Sadly, as I walked around I saw quite a few dead birds and squirrels. One of my neighbors was making an effort to collect them so they could be disposed of properly.

Hail formed drifts along the westward facing walls all around the complex. It looks like snow, eh? Again, I point out that the temperature was in the low 60s when I took these photos. It was overcast, though, so the sun wasn't pushing the melting process along.

A couple of cars. The cover doesn't look like it did much good. Note the overhang on the building in the right-hand photo. The hail tore the paint off in huge chunks.

And, now for photos of some of the broken windows:

In the first image above, it looks like the owner had lined the window with anti-glare film or something. It seems to have made a difference in keeping the window from completely shattering. In the center photo, you can see some damage to the paint job, dents on the cooling unit, and hail that still hasn't melted away. And, on the right, you can see the blinds were ripped up pretty badly.

The first photo above is of the unit on the west side of my building. Note the torn up patio cover along with the two broken windows. And, more torn up paint on the siding. In the center photo,the window was completely shattered. Can you imagine how scary that must've been for the folks inside? Yikes. And, that last image isn't of a window. It's of the siding. I believe that building was repainted last summer. The contractors supposedly replaced all the bad/rotting siding before painting. It certainly doesn't look like they did their job in this instance, eh? I saw at least four or five spots on different buildings like this where the hail tore through the siding. This was the worst spot I saw, though.

And, after all that damage, there were a couple of things that just amazed me...

Look at the accumulation of hail around the bench at the bus stop across the street from the entrance to my complex. How can it possibly have been that deep? Wow. It's at least a foot thick.

A shot of the drainage ditch at Lamar and Rutland about 20 hours after the storm was over. I wish I'd seen it early in the day instead of late. I bet it was pretty impressive, eh? And, a closeup of the ice in that mess.

UPDATE #2 (March 28th)

I got up early this morning and bagged the pine cones and needles that had accumulated behind the garage. I had to get it done before the trash guys came at 8. I just managed to finish. Five bags of garbage. From that one tree. What a mess. How 'bout that pretty blue sky we have going on this morning? Wow.

Posted on March 25, 2005 by Joanna