Storm Chasing from Home?
Kevin and I were leaving his house to go to my house for the daily bike ride. I told him to check the radar before we left to check on the storms I remembered seeing earlier in the day. He checked it and we saw a big, red system headed our way. We put the storm tracks on and it showed a hail core and it would be over us in a half an hour! We decided to wait for the storm to pass and we ran to Food Lion, because I really wanted some corn bread!
On the way to my house from Food Lion, we turned onto one of the streets going toward my house when a huge bolt of CG lightning touched the ground right up the road in front of us. I screamed a little and took my foot off the gas, but Kevin told me to keep going. He also mentioned how I was a veteran at this. I told him I didn't have to drive during the storms! I noticed two wall clouds, one to our left and one to our right. I did not want to drive in that direction! I just wanted to get to the house and get in before the storm hit. I turned on another street, and we saw another CG right over the hill! We finally got to the house, and I hurried inside, forgetting the corn bread in the car, and looked out the front window.
I could see the hail core headed right for the house. Unlike when we storm chase, you can't just move away from the hail when you're in a house. Soon it was raining so hard just down the street that we couldn't see the mountains just to the west of us anymore. It eventually powered over us. Heavy rains, winds, and hail pounded my neighborhood.
~*~Video here as soon as I get it up on youtube!~*~
The
hail started out tiny, but as the storm moved over us, the hail got bigger and bigger. I saw a few pieces were quarter size, maybe bigger. I called the NOAA weather station to report the hail. Other than the hail, the wind didn't seem very strong. The guy I talked to at the weather station told me there was some rotation with the storm after I told him about the wall clouds.
After the storm died down, I got some hail to show to Kevin up close since he said he hadn't remember ever seeing hail. Then we decided to use the hail as ice for the ice tea! Our back porch looked like it had snowed!
All in all, it was a pretty big storm for the area. Brought me back to the good old days of storm chasing...a few weeks ago...:)
~Taylor~