Gang, Gang, the Hail's All Here
Jun. 16th, 2008 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogMe and WALL-E were just getting to the last corner of the back forty a few minutes ago when I heard thunder off in the distance. It was still clear directly overhead, but not by much, from the looks of it.
When the first droplets hit, I was amscraying to the garage (naturally the furthest possible distance from that end of the yard, but I made it). By the time I walked back into the house, the storm was directly overhead.
And blowing chunks on our yard:
That is my left palm. From left to right: a penny for frame of reference, the biggest-ass hailstone Emily could find without leaving the overhang outside the back door, my wedding band, and a smaller one from her first venture out which had already melted a bit by the time we shot this.
Oddly, this very subject was on the radio earlier. Sports talk show personalities were reading verbatim from the Wikipedia entry on hail, noting the old observation that, generally, weather phemomena get metaphorical comparisons to sports objects (golfball-size hail, frinstance) while tumors get matched up with pieces of fruit. Hail does seem to be the one exception, as a size scale is presented there mixing the athletic with the carcinogenic and also with currency:
Object Diameter
Pea 6.4 millimetres (0.25 in)
Dime 17.9 millimetres (0.70 in)
Penny 19 millimetres (0.75 in)
Nickel 21.2 millimetres (0.83 in)
Quarter 24.26 millimetres (0.955 in)
Half dollar 30.6 millimetres (1.20 in)
Walnut 38 millimetres (1.5 in)
Golfball 44 millimetres (1.7 in)
Tennis Ball 64 millimetres (2.5 in)
Baseball 70 millimetres (2.8 in)
Grapefruit 108 millimetres (4.3 in)
Softball 114 millimetres (4.5 in)
On this Gotta-Go-to-Mohs kinda scale, our falldown just now wasn't all that notable, but the suddenness and frequency of these events (a friend in Rochester was having a similar downpour earlier this afternoon) certainly adds to the weirdness of the climatology.
----
And just as quickly as it came, the sun is out and we have a rainbow. Way to stand on those promises, God.
When the first droplets hit, I was amscraying to the garage (naturally the furthest possible distance from that end of the yard, but I made it). By the time I walked back into the house, the storm was directly overhead.
And blowing chunks on our yard:
That is my left palm. From left to right: a penny for frame of reference, the biggest-ass hailstone Emily could find without leaving the overhang outside the back door, my wedding band, and a smaller one from her first venture out which had already melted a bit by the time we shot this.
Oddly, this very subject was on the radio earlier. Sports talk show personalities were reading verbatim from the Wikipedia entry on hail, noting the old observation that, generally, weather phemomena get metaphorical comparisons to sports objects (golfball-size hail, frinstance) while tumors get matched up with pieces of fruit. Hail does seem to be the one exception, as a size scale is presented there mixing the athletic with the carcinogenic and also with currency:
Object Diameter
Pea 6.4 millimetres (0.25 in)
Dime 17.9 millimetres (0.70 in)
Penny 19 millimetres (0.75 in)
Nickel 21.2 millimetres (0.83 in)
Quarter 24.26 millimetres (0.955 in)
Half dollar 30.6 millimetres (1.20 in)
Walnut 38 millimetres (1.5 in)
Golfball 44 millimetres (1.7 in)
Tennis Ball 64 millimetres (2.5 in)
Baseball 70 millimetres (2.8 in)
Grapefruit 108 millimetres (4.3 in)
Softball 114 millimetres (4.5 in)
On this Gotta-Go-to-Mohs kinda scale, our falldown just now wasn't all that notable, but the suddenness and frequency of these events (a friend in Rochester was having a similar downpour earlier this afternoon) certainly adds to the weirdness of the climatology.
----
And just as quickly as it came, the sun is out and we have a rainbow. Way to stand on those promises, God.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 01:17 am (UTC)Fortunately it didn't hit Kendall, so the brother-in-law's apple harvest is safe.