And the Storm Came Rolling In

When I hear the weather men predict rain, I only believe them about 10% of the time.  And here, where we live, it can rain five miles from our house and we will have nothing but sunshine.  Even when we see those big dark rain clouds overhead, there is still no guarantee that we are gonna see anything from it.

So, last Tuesday when the rain came along, it was a little surprising.  And then when the hail was pounding down on our  house it was a little scary (please don't break any windows or roof tiles) and amazing.  Doug and I watched the entire storm from the front and back of the house.  We kept going back and forth between the two to watch.

Some of the things I remember from that day - our pool had waves in it.  Like totally visible waves jumping up out of the pool.  In a matter of moments, I was suddenly able to see sky through the tree where it had just been full of leaves.  I mean literally, I couldn't even see branches in it before.  I could barely see anything beyond the sidewalk in the front yard, or I should say, where the sidewalk is supposed to be in the front yard.  I could not even see the sidewalk.  There was so much water in the street that the sidewalk and a portion of the front yard were covered in swirling water. 

And then, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours later when we went to pick Ryan up from school, this is what our neighborhood looked like:

An uprooted tree in the neighborhood.  There were more of these than I could count.  Luckily, this one missed the house it fell next to.

A branch that was snapped off a tree and was laying on a fence.

At least 3 hours later, here is a pile of hail up against our house.

Doug had just started getting the lawn ready for winter seeding and fertilizing.  Underneath this tree it was nothing but brown dirt.  And then along came all the leaves.  If you look at the left side, you cannot even see the pool kool deck, it was completely covered with leaves.

A coworker of Doug's came to pick him up for work a couple of days later.  He lives about a 15 minute drive from here.  He told Doug our neighborhood looked like a war zone.  They got hardly anything at all - just some rain and no hail.