Wicked storm passed through here last nite. Huge hailstones.

[Webster Green]

I'm in Northern California. We hardly ever get thunder and lightning, but last night was absolutely spectacular.

The hail that fell was like nothing I've seen here. I ran out to grab one to document the size. they were 1/2" to almost 2" in diameter.

Amazing weather. My cat was totally freaked out by all the noise.

Here's a picture of one hailstone that I grabbed at random. It's an inch and a half wide with an irregular shape. A lot of them had the same shape, like ice fingers protruding out from the edge. Couldn't stay out too long. Those things hurt!

[Warpy]

1. We get those all the time here in the high desert

and yes, the cat hates it, poor little thing.

I've only seen one damaging hailstorm here, hail baseball size that dented an aluminum awning I had. I lived with the dents.

[Webster Green]

2. Baseball size? Jeebus!

Guess you don't stroll around while that's going on. :+

[Warpy]

4. I was lucky to be driving a mile away, where hail was only marble size

A lot of cars that were parked in the area had dents.

That's happened only once around here and it was in 1993. Such storms happen much more frequently in Tornado Alley, resulting in a lot of new cars being sold at a discount for dents.

[Jazzgirl]

11. They had a hail storm in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro

one year where the hail was so big it actually knocked out a few people. It also totaled a bunch of cars. I remember driving around after the storm passed seeing cars where the top was literally pounded down to the seats and all the windows busted out. Scary.

[damntexdem]

3. You call that little dot of ice a hailstone?

Until they're the size to leave cars looking like golf balls (similar dents all over), it's not really a hailstorm. ;-)

[Gman]

5. Interesting...

The current El Nino is starting to moderate and die out. As it does there should be more rain events for the Pacific NW down to Northern CA. I'll bet it's been dry there for the last 6 months or so.

[MilesColtrane]

6. In Texas that's referred to as "sleet".

This is more like a hailstone.

[Webster Green]

7. Wow!

That's a friggin' hailstone.

[MilesColtrane]

8. I was in the area when this storm came through.

I remember hearing about people who couldn't get out of the open in time getting skull fractures.

The hail totaled 100 police cars and killed a monkey at the zoo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Mayfest_Storm

[tammywammy]

9. Now THAT was a hail storm

I was in 8th grade and my mom was buying me my cello. The guy we bought it from was a cellist with the Ft Worth Symphony at the time (he now just makes/sells instruments) and him and his wife were stuck driving to some symphony thing in that storm. He had his car in the back, everything was beaten up in it. Almost all windows broken, dents everywhere. He said he was just laying over the cello in the back (it was in a hard case) praying nothing happened to it.

I remember a few years before that a big hail storm that went through, it was at least baseball sized hail.

[Jazzgirl]

12. That was the scariest hail storm I remember.

n/t

[murielm99]

10. I remember one storm with hail that size in Illinois.

It was more than twenty years ago. I closed windows to keep them from being broken. Fortunately, my car was under cover.

All the traffic on the highway in front of my house pulled over.

A friend of ours was coming down the road on an older tractor that had no cab. He parked in our driveway very quickly and ducked into the corn crib. When the hailstorm was over (it was very brief), I still had to treat the cuts on his hands and arms. He had some bruises the next day, too.

I saved a couple of those hailstones in the freezer for awhile. Then I got tired of looking at them.

[ManiacJoe]

13. If you have any good photos

of the storm or its aftermath, go to the photography forum and enter one in this month's contest.