I woke up this morning expecting rough weather, as I’d kept up with the forecast for the past few days. This low pressure system was expected a few days ago, but somehow got slowed down enough to pass only this morning. Hearing the rain begin outside, I turned on my weather radio for an update. Moments later, a bulletin went out about a storm in southern Wake county, moving northeast at an astonishing 100 MPH with the potential for producing nickel-size hail.
The bulletin didn’t mention northern Wake at all, but any storm moving at 100 MPH can be on you in no time flat, so I took my ham radio with me on the way to breakfast. Not long after I pulled up the blinds at our kitchen window, the sky got very, very dark. The radio began to buzz with reports of large hail, with one report only two miles away. Sure enough, hail began to fall. Hallie got excited and went up to the window for a look.
This was no ordinary hail! Suddenly huge chunks were falling out of the sky! The house was thundering with the sound of falling ice, the racket scaring the cat silly and making Hallie worried and tearful. Fortunately, the fast-moving nature of the storm meant it didn’t last long, and soon we were looking at a relatively-peaceful yard covered with huge hailstones. Then the floodgates opened up, dumping torrents of rain on us. According to my rain gauge, it fell at a rate of 4.3 inches per hour!
Once the floods had subsided, I ventured out to measure a hailstone. After ten minutes of heavy rain, the hailstone measured over 1.5 inches in width. Incredible!
After wolfing down a bite to eat, I just had to have a record of this storm, so I returned outside to snap a picture of another hailstone. This one measured over an inch. Still quite impressive.
It was the largest hail I’d ever seen, even more remarkable considering the speed in which it came and went.
This Skywarn stuff is pretty cool.
