Gramma arrived today! She texted us from the corner gas station at the same time we received a Code Red Weather Alert for "Severe Thunderstorm, Hail, Tornadic Signature, Tornadic Debris". I texted her back to hang up the pump and GET HERE NOW. I paced around the front yard pulling down bird feeders and tucking kid toys into the sunroom for a few minutes and as soon as her car entered the driveway, it hit. Wind whipped through the trees, rain poured down sideways, and hail started to pound the carport.
She parked and we ran inside to watch from the window, phone in hand to listen for a tornado warning, in case we needed to retreat to the bathroom (the "safe zone" in our house, though James badly wants a storm shelter - and we're seriously looking into it!) The storm lasted 20 minutes, with just 5-10 minutes of intense hail. It was crazy. Every year here I think I've seen it all, and then something new comes through. The hail was anywhere from dime-sized to about half the size of a baseball. When we went back outside after the storm to check for damage, we found a single piece of hail that hadn't fully melted (even 20 minutes after the storm!) and was still quarter-sized. We saved it to show Jay. A local friend took the below picture from our Elementary school down the road, and it depicts the hail size and density of cover accurately. CRAZY. And while one tree snapped, we didn't sustain any roof damage and Jean's car made it under the carport just in the nick of time!
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