Discussion: hail
in: Becks; Becks > 2015-06-23
Jun 24, 2015 3:04 AM
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Unfortunately the storm here produced golf ball sized hail and flooding. My garden took a beating. Some of the toms are broken off at the tops, about half of the onions folded over. The garlic looks ok at least. The cantaloupes and cukes look battered, but hard to tell in the dark (I wasn't home when it came through). My erosion control project with new grass across the street is a total loss. It wasn't really designed for a flash flood. The garbage can is gone. Probably at the bottom of Loch Raven. Maybe things will look better in the morning (sigh).
Jun 24, 2015 3:35 AM
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video from an apt complex where I used to live, not far from the house. Glad my car was in the garage!
Jun 24, 2015 5:22 PM
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My tomatoes also took a beating, but no hail here so nothing too drastic. That was mostly my fault for not having propped them up properly yet. The cukes and things are still not at their maximal growing phase here, so they escape. I hope some things recover for you :(
Jun 24, 2015 6:22 PM
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Daylight inspection revealed its not the end of the world. The broken tom branches are minor and only a couple of small fruit lost. The cantaloupes however lost lots of leaves and many others have holes punched in them. The onions are the most disappointing. Some broken leaves, but about half are bent over - just as they were starting to bulb. They were looking so good too :( They'll survive, but yields will be off. Only 5 bolts out of 200 plants this year!
The erosion control diversion bars held fast, but the water matted down the earlier grass and dumped huge piles of gravel and sand on top of the freshly planted seed that was just sprouting. I dug out what I could with my fingers. It did its job though - the washout would have been much worse. Some spots farther down the street look pretty bad. I found my garbage can 3 houses down, wedged against a wisteria bush. The lid is gone. I searched the whole stream down to the culvert but there's no sign of it. Will go for a run by the Loch this weekend to see if its down there.
I've pulled all the Tzan garlic and it looks pretty good. Also pulled the Spanish Benitee, but its disappointingly small. Won't be planting that variety again next year. The Tzan is pretty amazing. The plants are so small and they mature earlier than all the others, but still have nice sized bulbs. The Music is still strong and green. Will be at least 2 weeks before its ready to pull. Some pics. One of the "flopcat" in there :). I finally posted some tulip pics from back in May. And the future home of Becky's asparagus is done, although its hosting the cantaloupe array this year, and a couple of blueberry bushes.
By the way, I now have 9 asparagus plants established (though they may comprise more than 9 actual germinations). I planted more seeds this morning directly in the nursery bed. They're going in as I pull the garlic. Next spring I'll dig the crowns and move them to their final home.
The erosion control diversion bars held fast, but the water matted down the earlier grass and dumped huge piles of gravel and sand on top of the freshly planted seed that was just sprouting. I dug out what I could with my fingers. It did its job though - the washout would have been much worse. Some spots farther down the street look pretty bad. I found my garbage can 3 houses down, wedged against a wisteria bush. The lid is gone. I searched the whole stream down to the culvert but there's no sign of it. Will go for a run by the Loch this weekend to see if its down there.
I've pulled all the Tzan garlic and it looks pretty good. Also pulled the Spanish Benitee, but its disappointingly small. Won't be planting that variety again next year. The Tzan is pretty amazing. The plants are so small and they mature earlier than all the others, but still have nice sized bulbs. The Music is still strong and green. Will be at least 2 weeks before its ready to pull. Some pics. One of the "flopcat" in there :). I finally posted some tulip pics from back in May. And the future home of Becky's asparagus is done, although its hosting the cantaloupe array this year, and a couple of blueberry bushes.
By the way, I now have 9 asparagus plants established (though they may comprise more than 9 actual germinations). I planted more seeds this morning directly in the nursery bed. They're going in as I pull the garlic. Next spring I'll dig the crowns and move them to their final home.
Jun 25, 2015 11:06 PM
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It's a bit of a standing joke in the meteorological community that all newsworthy hail is the size of golf balls. (A search of our severe weather database for references to golf-ball sized hail also revealed that golf balls are 3.5, 4 or 4.2cm in diameter depending on which state you're in, which I suspect will come as news to the golfing authorities).
Jun 25, 2015 11:37 PM
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Yeah, its a big jump from pea-sized to golf balls, but there aren't many common balls in between :). You don't hear about "testicle sized" hail very often. Next up is baseball-sized, which we hear about occasionally. What's after that? Softballs? Bowling balls?
I spoke to my next-door neighbor last night and was told the hail was "ping-pong ball" sized. The Post has some pics of a few large stones that fell in Timonium, just south of where I live. I'm sure these are the 10-sigma compound examples from the storm. My plants took a serious beating from whatever was falling. The toppled onion leaves have white dents and most of the water hyacinth leaves in the pond are torn. Hail is relatively rare around here though, and it almost never falls in cm increments. What's rarer than golf-ball sized hail in the US? Metric rulers.
I spoke to my next-door neighbor last night and was told the hail was "ping-pong ball" sized. The Post has some pics of a few large stones that fell in Timonium, just south of where I live. I'm sure these are the 10-sigma compound examples from the storm. My plants took a serious beating from whatever was falling. The toppled onion leaves have white dents and most of the water hyacinth leaves in the pond are torn. Hail is relatively rare around here though, and it almost never falls in cm increments. What's rarer than golf-ball sized hail in the US? Metric rulers.
This discussion thread is closed.