Posts Tagged ‘hail’
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 