Plano Hail

Yesterday was one of those days where every few hours the forecast got worse. By late afternoon we had slipped into the "marginal" risk zone of severe weather. Since that often seems to mean that severe weather is definitely coming I was worried. Especially since radar seemed to indicate the storm line was beginning to the west way further out than had been predicted.

By around ten last night I knew we were in trouble for sure as there was one particular nasty storm in the line that was aimed right at us. The same storm had tried to spin up a tornado in north Fort Worth before morphing into a major hail storm. In the picture to the right from one of the local radars, the light pink area is hail to the size of golf balls. Our apartment is located just a few miles north of where it says Shepton. The Shepton deal refers to Shpeton High School where both the boys went to school.

I moved my car under the carport into the empty parking spot for the vacant apartment next door and hoped for the best. Then a few minutes later the hail began smashing down. It quickly escalated to ping pong and golf ball sized hail that tore up the few plants on the porch and broke the edges of the pots. Fortunately, we were not hit with the 50 plus mph winds that were seen elsewhere in the area. That meant that a lot of the hail came down straight or on a slight angle and missed the apartment windows and did not go under the carport.

Local media is full of images this morning showing what hail can do when it is coupled with wind and blasted into homes and cars. We got lucky. The apartment windows held despite being hit repeatedly in cringe worthy impacts and the cars seem to be okay.

Our nerves are fried. The next round of storms is supposed to be on Ester Sunday which traditionally can be a very rough day weather wise.