Posts Tagged ‘hail’
Left Out
The day started mostly sunny but the forecast warned of a chance of rain in the afternoon. Sometime after Cyndie departed for a couple of days away with friends, I granted Asher a chance to walk through the woods wherever his nose led us, hoping to distract him from already missing her.
Before we set out, I opened a gate to allow the horses some time to graze grass. As far as we can tell, their bodies are adjusting to the gradual change in diet just fine.
While our neighbor to the south mowed grass along our property lines, Asher and I popped out of the woods and made our way between the horses in the field and the riding mower. It seemed like a perfect afternoon of spring sunshine.
The sky was partly cloudy, but it didn’t seem all that threatening. I hadn’t paid any attention to what the radar looked like. I’ve heard the phrase “popcorn showers” used for the dotted image of precipitation blobs that showed up when I finally checked.
Asher and I had made our way around our entire property and into the barn where I left him to kill time while I cleaned up manure and then prepared buckets of feed. I was planning to bring out the buckets as an enticement to get the horses to come in off the field. Before I made it out the door, they came racing in at top speed.
We couldn’t feel the wind at that point but the sound of the howling gusts that suddenly blew through the surrounding trees was downright spooky. Eerie enough to scare the horses back to the safety of the barn. I hung their buckets of feed as quickly as I could to get them focused on their evening meal while I scooted down to close the gate to the field.
I made it back just as rain started to fall. Then it started to pour out of the cloud with an ominous roar that rumbled the metal roof to maximum decibels. I looked out the half door at the horses and noticed why it was so loud on the roof. It looked to be equal parts rain and BB-sized hail.
Unfortunately, of the four spots the horses choose for feeding, Mia’s is outside the cover of the overhang. With enough warning, we can easily move her under but she was already out there when the deluge hit.
I could see the pellets of hail bouncing off of her. It didn’t seem to bother Mia a bit. Light turned around a couple of times to look out at the cloudburst but other than that, the dramatic precipitation didn’t disturb the horses from their feed.
The gusher ended as quickly as it arrived. Mia was wet but unfazed by it all.
Asher and I walked back up to the house under a fresh interval of sunshine and ate our respective dinners devoid of any further meteorologic theatrics.
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Different Showroom
On Wednesday, the asphalt crew showed up promptly to work on sealing the surface of our year-old driveway pavement. Since we wouldn’t want to drive on it for at least 24 hours, we moved both cars out of the garage. I parked mine down beside the barn and Cyndie put hers by the road, knowing she would be leaving right in the middle of the time they were working.
I hadn’t considered the fact she would be returning home with a car full of groceries. That wasn’t a big problem because we always have the ability to drive through our fields if need be. While the horses were up by the barn, I opened the hay field gate by the road, pulled inside the fence, and closed the gate behind me.
As I crested the hill in the middle of the field, I watched for a reaction from the horses to a car approaching in the middle of their grazing territory. For whatever possible reason, they were surprisingly unfazed. I had Cyndie open a paddock gate so I could drive right through and the horses didn’t even look at us.
That should have been it for the night. By early yesterday afternoon, we could drive the cars up to the house. However, stormy weather showed up. Threats of big wind and large hail loomed large. We pondered the situation while constantly updating weather radar images.
If we did nothing, we feared the one day both of our cars were parked outside would be the day it would hail something awful.
The best way to make sure it wouldn’t hail was to move both cars into the barn. I wish I knew what the horses thought of us turning the place into an automobile showroom for a day.
Of course, the move worked wonders. Not a single hailstone fell from the clouds while the cars were protected. It did, however, provide us with ease of mind as multiple waves of cloudbursts passed overhead throughout the evening.
On a completely unrelated note, we have recently given Asher several opportunities to be outside with us without tethering him to a leash, mostly without incident. He dashes away into the surrounding woods on occasion but returns soon enough.
“Mostly without incident” indicates there was one situation that I will call an ‘incident.’ While he was off on his own, Asher took unwelcome liberties with the freshest composting manure pile, rubbing his chest, the vest we make him wear outdoors, and his collar thoroughly in the stinkiest green horse shit dumped on the pile earlier that morning.
Seems to me he is making a statement that he wants to be a full-time outdoor dog.
I didn’t expect this would become one of the problems with wanting him to be able to roam untethered on our property.
Just yuck. Really, really yuck.
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Hail Surprise
It was a first for me. We rode our bikes into falling hailstones. I wonder if my insurance covers hail damage to my bicycle.
We awoke to a perfect morning thunderstorm that pinned us down in our tents for nearly an hour beyond our typical time. That was okay because the breakfast caterer showed up at about the same interval beyond what was expected.
Even though we started riding from Park Rapids toward Staples later than our usual departure time, we were able to pedal off into reasonably sane weather conditions.
That didn’t last.
Soon, the sky ahead of us took on the appearance of impending rainfall. Little did we know, it would rather quickly produce pea-sized balls of ice in addition to good old pouring rain.
As stoically as possible, we forged ahead as the small hail stones bounced off the road and pinged against our helmets. It was when they began to increase in size that my friend, Steve Reynolds and I both agreed it was time to look for cover.
The first turn-off was a short driveway with a clear “No Trespassing” sign. We went no further than the first sizable tree and stood beneath its branches.
The wait was probably only five or ten minutes until the precipitation calmed down to nothing more than a fading rain shower.
We made our way back to the road and resumed pedaling toward the next rest stop. Eventually, the sky cleared up and we enjoyed a really nice ride to Staples.
I failed to pay adequate attention to just how nice it really got and didn’t put sunscreen on my face. By the end of the day, I had a little sunburn on the same day I bicycled in a hailstorm.
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Big Impact
In the end, the storm that started Sunday night with that quick downpour I wrote about in yesterday’s post reverberated throughout the rest of the overnight hours with multiple waves of thunder, lightning, hail, wind, and rain, and dumped so much water it overflowed our 6-inch rain gauges. We collected over seven inches of rain in about 18-hours. A little to our northeast, the official total was over nine inches.
That kind of precipitation in such a short amount of time tends to have a big impact. My commute in the morning yesterday passed flooded farm fields, filled ditches, and creeks flowing so far beyond their banks they looked like lakes. I precariously crawled my Crosstrek through two sections of local roads where water was flowing across the pavement and skirted around several medium-sized branches that had fallen onto one of the lanes.
While I was at work, Cyndie texted to report our power was out and water was puddling on our basement floor. The basement leak was a first in the time since we’ve been here. Time to check our gutters for clear and proper function.
News reports started to materialize depicting the significant impact of flooding in multiple communities near to us. Roads were closed, families evacuated from their homes, cars swept off the road and occupants found standing on their vehicle rooftops in the adjacent ditch. The way the valleys around local creeks flood after downpours brings to mind the historical flood I wrote about from when my ancestors lived nearby.
Surveying our woods after things calmed down yesterday, Cyndie found the boardwalk we created suffered some disruption.
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It’s just enough disturbance to frustrate us, but compared to a lot of other flood damage possibilities, not all that onerous.
I looked out the window and noticed an upturned stump I’d never seen before.
Luckily, that tree tipped away from our house and toward the woods.
Cyndie spent much of the afternoon moving furniture and mopping up in the basement. We still need to check the shingles for hail damage.
We are hoping no additional damage will be revealed and things will dry up before the next round of precipitation moves in.
A little peace and quiet would be a welcome change about now.
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Holy Leaves
When I got home from work yesterday, I discovered a lot of leaves on the ground. Definitely more leaves than branches, although there was an unsurprising number of branches scattered about, too.
I’m guessing that the broad line of thunderstorms that rolled southeast across Minnesota in the middle of the day yesterday dropped some hail over our property. Nobody other than Pequenita and the chickens were here at the time, and they’re not talking.
Cyndie took Delilah up to the lake for a few days, so all I know about what happened here is based on evidence gathered in the aftermath.
The sky in Plymouth became impressively dark as the storm arrived there in the morning, but I didn’t witness any dramatic wind. I did spot two impressive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. The rain was moderately heavy for a while, but never as epic as what the boss experienced in Bloomington, where he reported roads temporarily flooded over.
From the looks of our yard at home and the meager half-inch of water in our rain gauges, I think a little hail is about the worst we received.
A few of the leaves in the yard have holes in them, providing additional clues to the likelihood of hail.
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Happily, I couldn’t find any other signs of damage. Skylights on the house, shingles on the roof, and the plastic corrugated roof panels on the chicken coop show no evidence of the assault.
I didn’t find any stray eggs laying out where they might get damaged, either. Found five in the nest boxes, from the eight birds, so the numbers still lend credence to the possibility one or more of the hens have decided there is a better place to lay than in the coop.
Hopefully, the birds had enough sense to seek shelter when hail started to fall. I didn’t notice any holy chickens, so I think they fared well enough.
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Hail No!
We got pounded yesterday! It seemed to just come out of nowhere. I was out in the shop when Cyndie stopped by to mention she could hear thunder in the distance. I didn’t even realize precipitation was expected in the middle of the day. It was sunny when I had left the house a short time earlier.
That changed pretty quick. There was a moment when I became aware of a roar that turned out to be rain on the metal roof of the shop. Then came a single “CRACK!” that I recognized right away.
I stepped to the door to watch for more.
Sure enough, there was a slow and steady increase in sharp bangs on the roof. Pieces of white ice started to bounce on the pavement of the driveway. I began to realize that I couldn’t tell how big they were because the hail stones were shattering when they hit the hard surface, but the intensity was increasing enough that I wasn’t about to step out from the protection of the roof to collect them from the yard.
As the duration extended and the intensity increased, it occurred to me to record video of the spectacle. Now you can see and hear what we experienced for yourself:
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After it had calmed to only occasional rare strikes of hail, I rushed out to check on Cyndie and the house, pausing to collect some of the larger stones along the way.
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I was worried about the two skylight windows on the roof of our house. No cracks evident, much to my surprise. I haven’t looked closely, but even the shingles seemed fine, viewed at an angle from the ground.
There were a fair number of leaves pummeled from the trees, but no other obvious damage.
Then I thought about the animals. I have no idea how they reacted to the calamity while the worst of it was underway. I know the noise of it on the metal barn roof must have been pretty disturbing.
I found the horses standing together out in the paddock, looking a little shocked, but otherwise unharmed. They have a pretty thick hide, but strikes from those stones must really sting! How can they not?
Just as I emerged from the trail to check on the horses, the ten chickens trotted out of the trees to greet me, looking as if nothing spectacular had happened for them. I expect the thicket where they can hide was under enough tree cover that falling balls of rocketing ice slowed to relatively harmless speeds.
So, all in all, it was mostly noise that disturbed an otherwise beautiful Friday morning. I suppose the tree leaves would offer a harsher view of the event. Our truck is already so beat and battered that damage from hail strikes is difficult to discern.
We lucked out, beyond a bit of a scare.
Hail makes a really wicked sound as it smashes into everything around.
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Startling Storm
I had a ready-made excuse for not working on the chicken coop construction after work yesterday, because rain was falling from the sky. I drove through a couple of heavy downpours on my way home, but it wasn’t raining too hard when I pulled into our driveway.
I must have just missed it, though, because the drainage swale across our pastures was filled with rushing water. Cyndie reported we had received an inch in a very short span of time.
While having dinner with George and Anneliese, something caught my eye outside one of the high triangle windows beside our fireplace chimney. It appeared to be “snowing” leaves high in the sky. A combination of high wind and more rain was stripping the leaves en mass from our trees.
The sky grew dark and Cyndie said she thought it would hail.
“No, it’s not going to hail.” I said. “It’s just looks like this because it’s the middle of October and the sun is low.”
A minute or so after that, it started to hail.
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You’d think I would better know to heed her intuition by this point in our lives together.
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Relative Something 