Crazy Huge Hail in North Carolina. Yes Size Matters... Cool Weather This Morning. Nasty Weather on the Plains... Then Comes Hurricane Season

To be clear...there is no hurricane today in our basin.

There isn't even a small tropical storm.

Not even a tropical depression.

Yet I'm a really good mood.

Why?

Is that awesome?

Okay it's a kind of denial but loving it.

Windows wide open.....

...fresh air.

Not hot, not humid.

And yesterday I got hail.

Big, huge, hard hitting, heavy hail.

This is a video from online.

Crazy fast hitting hail storm.

This shows why I don't have good video.

I was out in it in my husband's car...

...he really didn't want the hail in the car.

But he was fantastic about going out into it.

And he drove through a heavy white out while...

I was over the top crazy excited loving it.

I love hail.

I don't love hail to destroy your car or crops.

Just something about hail... it's crazy.

So the day began like this....

It was extremely dark outside for 9 am and despite warnings the last few days that we were in for marginal chance of severe weather nothing loomed big on the radar but the air had that feeling to it so I went outside. The sky was heavily cloaked in low, dark clouds. My phone announced a lightning strike hit about five miles from my location. I took a walk, tried to get a feel for the weather without staring at the radar or playing online with friends. I wondered on the man edging the lawn, gardeners out doing their thing with threatening weather didn't seem like a good idea. They were picking up lots of debris from the last late night storm and doing a nice job but using edgers with earphones on listening I suppose to loud music from the way the guy was enjoying himself seemed like flying blind into nasty weather. Suddenly there was this huge, jagged lightning bolt that cut it's way across the sky not far from me at a long, slow angle and then suddenly sliced down with an explosive sound that I'm guessing landed a few blocks away by Ravenscroft athletic field; nice private school with a huge athletic field filled with huge lights that often attract lightning or ravens... depending on the weather. 

My husband yelled downstairs and asked me if that was lightning. I yelled up "yeah" as my heart was suddenly beating fast and he yelled down "good" because honestly otherwise you would have thought a bomb went off somewhere. Raleigh doesn't get lightning storms the way Miami does and so this sort of came out of nowhere. Not a dark, threatening sky but low, heavy gray skies. And then the most incredible downdraft began as the temperature dropped and the breeze began and you could feel that feel in the air. So we left because I wanted to be outside somewhere if we were going to have weather and yet I didn't expect it to happen so fast and again no crazy warnings yet but you could see the radar had a few fast moving rogue cells* moving fast towards me. 

I took this picture and asked my husband if he wouldn't mind just going a few more blocks down to get a better view of the line and as usual he was agreeable :) so we drove another block or two and the whole sky just opened up and the wind began to blow and somewhere you could see a drop of rotation and huge, hard, heavy hailstones began pummeling the area. This system was moving faster than a bat out of hell as the saying goes and as I didn't want the hail all over the car I didn't open the window to get a good picture ... also figuring there were plenty of videos being taken I wanted to enjoy it. I did open the moon roof enough to watch the hail hitting before closing it as it was kind of making my husband concerned. Yes, the hail was that huge and more so voluminous amounts of hail not just one or two here or there as we usually see in Raleigh.

It says officially 1.75 inches in Raleigh.

I'd go with that but it really was the volume.

Trust me though size does matter with hail.

Wind was blowing wildly.

Total white out... could barely see the sidewalk.

Headlights in the white out that looked like thick mist.

And then it was gone.......

Within minutes a tornado warning was posted.

(Thanks....)

And I was nuts, excited and happy and loving it.

I do believe I said something like ...
"Can we do that again!"

And we did but without the hail.. just heavy rain.

Cranky calls them *rogue cells.

Good term.

Fast moving rogue cells.

Going under the radar til the NWS played catch up.

A catch me if you can sort of rogue storm cell.

Further away it was rated EF2 tornado.

Lots of damage.

By us we had immediate flooding ...

....but it ran off fast.

Yeah I love weather.

As for the tropics nothing there now.

But this triangle area needs to be watched.

Down the road.

As long as weather lingers there....

Anything can happen in a few weeks.

I'll be back soon with more real discussion.

I just wanted to record my thoughts.

And I want to get out and enjoy the 55 degree weather.

It's an illusion but I'll gladly take it.

Later in the week it's supposed to be in the high 80s again.

The real story is out on the Plains.

Severe weather for a whole week...

Storm chaser friends in place.

I'm waiting for the tropics to bubble myself...

Everything has it's season.

Sweet Tropical Dreams,

Bobbistorm

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