Just last week, Ted and I were saying we’ve never seen golf ball-sized hail, much less two-inch hail.  Then, today, look what fell from the sky.

 

At first, I was outside, just enjoying the sound of thunder from the approaching storm.  Then I heard big plops in the pool and noticed it was hailing ahead of the rain.  It seemed like a good idea to seek shelter indoors, so I watched the big (one- to one-and-a-half-inch) hail from a window.  When the wind picked up and started blowing the hailstones against the glass, I was afraid the window would shatter, so I moved to the leeward safety of the covered front porch.  After a minute or two, these huge hailstones started falling.  Being a meteorologist’s wife, I rolled up my jeans, put on some flipflops and a waterproof jacket, and ran into the grass to rescue some hailstones for authentic documentation with my National Weather Service yardstick–even though it’s not seasonally appropriate.

Note:  Our hail turned out to be nearly insignificant.  Just a few miles away, in O’Fallon, grapefruit-sized hail was reported and the NWS office had four-inch hail.