There came up a bad cloud......

Amontilado · May 29, 2005

Found it. 7" in diameter, 18.75" in circumphrence. Fell out of a storm near Aurora, Nebraska in 2003.

Steve

jinman · May 30, 2005

( Found it. 7" in diameter, 18.75" in circumphrence. Fell out of a storm near Aurora, Nebraska in 2003.

Steve )

When they talk about "record size" hail, I always think that's just the size of the one they found. The big one's probably were never found. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

TMAC, when I said "quarter size" I meant $0.25, quarter size. I've been in hundreds of nickel sized hail storms and never seen any damage to my vehicles although it could be that I didn't look closely enough. 3/4" hail stones will definitely leave little dents all over a vehicle. It looks like someone took a ball peen hammer to it.

Somewhere, I have some pictures of a Learjet 35 that flew through a baseball sized hail storm before landing in Dallas. His entire nosecone was shredded and the engine cowlings were beat like they had been attacked with sledgehammers. Even so, the stones never damaged the engine fan and the engines kept working until the plane was on the ground. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be flying in that plane? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Has anyone else heard the expression, "cow killer hail"? That's when the hail stones get so big that they will kill animals caught out in the storm. Of course, they will also kill people. A few years ago there was a huge hail storm here and lots of people got hurt trying to run from their cars to shelter. When the windows on the cars all got broken out, the people inside panicked and tried to run through the hail. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Richard · May 30, 2005

Eons ago, when I lived in southern Ohio (Hamilton), our neighbors went on a trip somewhere (memory fades). They were in a 1971 Eldorado convertable.

They got caught in a hailstorm that pock marked that Eldorado such that it ended up looking like a golfball. I don't recall if the windows made it. Logic tells me the top should have been toast but I don't remember anything about that either.

All I recall is looking at the hood and it looked like a 4 year old was let loose with a ball peen hammer

/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Bird · May 30, 2005

I sometimes wonder how much of the damage is dependent on the size of the hail stones and how much is dependent on the wind at the time. The worst hail storm I've seen was one I didn't get into but was following just behind it driving from Oklahoma City to Marlow, OK, in '56. I saw one convertible with thr cloth top shredded, and we measured one egg shaped hail stone that was 3.5" long. I got caught out in a City car in a hailstorm in '76 that was bad enough I turned the sun visor down because I was afraid it was going to break the windshield and I didn't want flying glass in my face. However, when it was over, the car showed no visible damage, but in spite of a huge quantity of hailstones, probably nothing bigger than dime sized. Then in '96 or '97, our car got lots of those dents that looked like from a ball peen hammer and little chips in the windshield, and I didn't see any hail stones bigger than nickle sized.

RMEADOWS · May 30, 2005

Wow, that will leave a mark!

( Found it. 7" in diameter, 18.75" in circumphrence. Fell out of a storm near Aurora, Nebraska in 2003.

Steve )

jinman · May 31, 2005

( I got caught out in a City car in a hailstorm in '76 that was bad enough I turned the sun visor down because I was afraid it was going to break the windshield and I didn't want flying glass in my face. However, when it was over, the car showed no visible damage, but in spite of a huge quantity of hailstones, probably nothing bigger than dime sized. Then in '96 or '97, our car got lots of those dents that looked like from a ball peen hammer and little chips in the windshield, and I didn't see any hail stones bigger than nickle sized. )

It might be the wind, Bird, or it might be the sheet metal in different cars. Either way, anything bigger than dime size is too big for me. The pea sized stuff that PineRidge got can sure sting your skin if you are caught out in it. When hail starts falling, I try to get somewhere so I'll be protected if it suddenly gets bigger. When I was a kid, we were on a family trip in Missouri. We drove into a hail storm and pulled off the road to get shelter. After the storm had passed, we saw a truck full of watermelons. The top layer of melons had been destroyed by hailstones. It was one sad, but funny, looking mess. My dad made a point of telling us that our heads would look just like those melons if we were caught out in a hail storm. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Barton · May 31, 2005

This reminds me of a story, the true type, way back in the 50's in eastern Kansas. One Sunday morning my Dad was picking strawberries when he heard a racket at his metal hay barn. He said he thought it was us kids throwing dirt clods (we would have been in deep trouble if it had been us) at the barn but we were in the house getting ready for church. Then he saw the dark cloud over the barn and knew it was hail. He just barely made it to the house.

The storm was very intense but brief and not much rain with it. After it was over he had all of us go outside and pick up several buckets of hail. The hail was about golf ball size and a bit larger. We stored the buckets in the root cellar and Dad wraped them in a canvas tarp.

Sunday afternoon the grandparents were invited over for some homemade strawberry ice cream. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Only in Kansas...

TMAC · May 31, 2005

( TMAC, when I said "quarter size" I meant $0.25, quarter size. I've been in hundreds of nickel sized hail storms and never seen any damage to my vehicles although it could be that I didn't look closely enough. 3/4" hail stones will definitely leave little dents all over a vehicle. It looks like someone took a ball peen hammer to it. )

Oops, I thought you were talking 1/4" measuement. Good night, I don't know what I would think if a storm of $0.25 size hail would pop up. I hope I never get to see. Coins are a better unit of measurement anyways. Thanks for clarifiying Jim.

My daughter would like to type something..... sxy78bbb88bbnmjby7ooo umb nnnnnnn. What that means I have the slightest idea. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

JazzDad · May 31, 2005

I recently enjoyed this story about hail:
hail story

jinman · May 31, 2005

(
My daughter would like to type something..... sxy78bbb88bbnmjby7ooo umb nnnnnnn. What that means I have the slightest idea. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif )

It's humiliating when a 1-yr old's typing makes more sense than mine. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif