Friday, April 14, 2006

Holy Hail



Last night on my way up to bed, I noticed that the lightning was starting and then once I got upstairs, it sounded like a bucket of tennis balls exploded and were bouncing all over the place. I looked outside and it just looked like rain. When I came back down and looked out the back door, there was hail slamming on the ground and the cars! AUGH!! I couldn't believe it... and it just kept getting worse!! AND BIGGER! It was marble size hail. Unbelievable.


I've always been fascinated by the weather and this hail just further intrigued me. I could not believe how perfectly round and smooth the hailstones were. I did a little research and found out:

Hail stones start as water drops. A strong wind updraft blows the drops up above the freezing level in the clouds and the drops freeze. When they get heavy enough, they fall. When they fall, one of three things can happen; the hail stone will melt and fall as rain, the hail stone won't melt and will fall as a hail stone or the updraft will be strong enough to blow the hailstone back above the freezing level and the stone will get bigger.

(Source: FAQ Kids http://www.faqkids.com/idx/0/085/article/How_does_hail_form.html)

2 comments:

Kelly said...

we had hail too - the size of golf balls and i guess in other parts of the city they were even bigger. hearing them come down was so frightening and exciting at the same time

Gina said...

That's crazy! I think the Milwaukee and Madison areas were hit harder than GB. We had a storm, but no hail! I don't think I've ever seen marble or golf ball size hail.