What The Hail???

[LanDi Liu]

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 11:38 AM, sagehen <sagehen at westelcom.com> wrote:
> on 9/12/08 10:23 AM, Doug Harris at cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET wrote:
>
>> Might those 'baseball' stories have been originated by fishermen?
>> dh
>> Poster:       Marc Velasco <marcjvelasco at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: What The Hail???
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---
>>
>>
>> Common [Midwest] terms [for hail]: pea-, dime-, golfball-, and
>> baseball-sized hail; although, it needs be said that baseball-sized hail was
>> rarely reported live, but common
>> in "big storm" stories.  Lawyers might further say that this list includes,
>> but is not limited to, the above mentioned terms.
> ~~~~~~~~~~
> I can testify to having seen & experienced baseball-sized hail.  There was a
> great swath of storms that swept across the US from Texas to Michigan &
> perhaps even into PA  on April 4, 1974, spawning many many tornadoes &
> doing enormous damage.  We lived about a mile off its path & so only
> suffered some of the milder effects.  I, all unawares, was driving an old
> Chevy pick-up more or less parallel to the storm's path  when overtaken by a
> hurricane-like rainstorm & hailstones that I was sure would break the
> windshield. They did dent the hood. They came down by bucketfuls for several
> minutes. The ground was covered with them.Our aluminum house roof  was
> pocked  in many places.  We thought to save a few examples of these truly
> baseball-sized  beauties & stuck them in our freezer.  We forgot that they
> needed to be sealed & of course they sublimated in the dry air of the
> freezer & eventually disappeared altogether.  Great souvenirs!  The lasting
> souvenirs were scraps of building materials & household goods that rained
> down for hours after the storm had passed, sad remains of houses utterly
> destroyed in nearby Xenia OH, the town worst hit in the whole country.
> AM

That storm made a lasting impression on me.  When those hailstones
came down I was in a bus coming home from school.  I guess I was in
second grade, in Cincinnati, OH.  The roof of the bus was just a sheet
of metal and we could see the big dents appearing from the inside of
the bus.  We were glad to be inside the bus, as some of the older
students were remarking how if one of those hailstones were to hit you
in the head, that'd be it.

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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