Oh Hail....

And not to the Chief this time.

Early this evening we had a ferocious storm--complete with the worst hailstorm I have ever witnessed.

The news said that a storm was coming, and that there was golf-ball sized hail, so I was on the porch watching the clouds blowing overhead. The wind picked up dramatically and then--whiz! Out of our backyard (or so it seemed) came huge chunks of ice. They were really moving fast, and smashing off the side of the house (and our big picture window, which I thought would smash for sure.) This kept up for a good 10 minutes--the hailstones were at least the size of golf balls, some were as large as oranges.

We headed into the kitchen, the only room without a window that faced the hail. Luckily, we didn't lose a window, in the house or the car, but poor Pearl the Mighty Honda took some lumps.

Here is our yard about halfway through the storm. It was raining too hard to get a good shot once the hail stopped, sadly. There are a few more in my Flickr album

I'm not someone who is afraid of storms, in fact I like them. Usually you can find me sitting on the porch, despite all warnings to the contrary, watching the clouds and rain.

This was different. I was truly frightened. The wind was tremendous, and the hail was coming down as hard as if pitched by a Little Leaguer. The lightning strikes were nearly continuous, and alarmingly close. I know several funnel clouds were sighted in town, but I don't believe any touched down. A pretty fierce storm this late in the season. Of course, I blame it all on the hot air belched out by the attack campaign ads.