As I drove north on I-35 and reached Buda, I noticed that the weather in Austin was looking worse and worse. When I got to south Austin, Jan called me and told me that there was a huge hail storm happening right at that moment at our house. She said the hail was so thick on the street, it looked like snow!
I could hear the sounds of the hail hitting the roof and patio, and asked Jan to run get the camera and take some photos. She was a little intimidated by the rig, but I told her to set it to auto, turn it on, point and shoot.
I think she did a pretty great job of capturing the moment! She scooped up some of the larger hailstones and put them in a ziplock bag in the freezer for me to see. Some were half-dollar size in diameter. Pretty impressive.
That night on the news, KXAN I believe it was, the meteorologist told about the "strange coincidence" of hail storms on March 25th. He said that in the years 1993 and in 2001, similar large hailstorms had hit Austin, and caused large amounts of damage to autos and roof shingles each time. He showed videos of previous hail storms and hailstones from the video archives. Pretty cool, I thought.
More later, thanks for stopping by.
Mike Z
PS - in searching around Google and Yahoo! I found this post by Treye Rice with a great shot of the hailstones around the tree in his front yard. He also has some great photos of the same sunsets I tried to capture on another post.
Well, what do you know, I'm surfing Blogger and find a fellow Austin blog!
ReplyDeleteWe did not get any hail at all out here off Bee Caves. It was really something, as these pix show.
Hi Jannie, thanks for stopping by and commenting! I was in South Austin on I-35(rush hour)and watched the huge black cloud go over North Austin. By the time I got home, most of the hail had melted away. I was so glad Jan got the photos she did.
ReplyDeleteBTW, we still have the hailstones in the ziplock bag!
Best regards,
Mike Z
Hail storms can be pretty frightening. We get them quite often in the summer up here. We've had hail do damage to our car and it just destroyed my vegetable garden's and garden's a couple of times. :(
ReplyDeleteThat's a bummer, Heather! We get hail so seldom that it makes the news...
ReplyDeleteHope your garden's back to normal. Glad to hear from you.
Best regards,
Mike Z
Hey Mike, the garden damage was years ago. But thanks for your sympathies. :) I'm just waiting for all this freaking snow to melt this year! Slowly but surely.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Heather
hi Mike!!!
ReplyDeleteseems spring is there already - with the exception of ice-fall !! :D here in estonia its nice but still quite cold - day time shows sun, but nights fall still below zero! wish the summer would get here sooner also!! the sad thing is also that when it finally arrives it almost immidiately starts to leave again !! i must move to some warm country i guess :D:D
Sorry to hear it's so cold there stil--me being a "thin skinned" Texan I doubt I would fare very well with your weather!
ReplyDeleteyes, the flowers and trees all know it's spring around here. The early blooming wildflowers are pretty outstanding due to our sudden bounty of rainfall. I like it!
Wherever the "warmer clime" you move to, don't lose track of me and the photographic memories! I always enjoy hearing from you.
Best wishes, and stay warm!
Mike Z
Hail storms are bad for our roof. It can create holes and cause leaks to our homes. What happened to the residents after this incident? I hope no one was hurt. It's been almost 4 years; I hope that they have rebuilt their homes by now. Mmm.. Metal roofing would be a good choice to install as this is more durable compared to other materials.
ReplyDeleteI think we did have our roof replaced after this storm. One of our neighbors installed a metal roof on his house, but they have since moved away.
ReplyDeleteThat’s true, Noreen. Metal roofs have high resistance to hail damage. In fact, this kind of roof received a Class IV grade – the highest in the UL 2218 Impact Resistance test. Stay safe, Mike! :)
ReplyDelete