Welcome to spring on the prairie.
A torrential late night rain/hailstorm, arrived on the high plains last night, turning the ground white, and wreaking havoc. It poured rained and hailed for 15-20 minutes….luckily it was small, hail…pea and gumball sized.
We sometimes laugh at what the weather station calls “heavy rain”. This one, they said, was a storm producing “torrential rainfall.” And, yes, ma’am, we got to see torrential rainfall!! I don’t know if there is such a thing as torrential hail, but I’d say this storm was the definition of it!
Remember all those orange Cedar trees, loaded with pollen? Hail and torrential rain clean up those trees!
Our daughter’s beloved daylilies…no match for a hailstorm!
What used to be beautiful, promising Allium…decimated. The tops of my beautiful, blue Amsonia, that was just starting to bloom….snapped off like spaghetti.
Here is what is left of my BEAUTIFUL little greenhouse garden…..hours before the storm, we thought it was time they could live outside…..we were wrong. Kind of…..
Actually, the spinach will come out of it fine, we just lost the first picking. Most of the radishes are ready to eat, and a few of the peas will probably make it just fine. It is just crushing to go from beautiful, ready to harvest garden, to shredded. But that’s just how it happens sometimes out here!
Is There a Silver Lining?
“But Julie,” you say, “what about looking for the good?”
And yes….you’re right, sometimes the good is hard to find. Hail is a distasteful, destructive, dreadful, disastrous, deflating, disheartening, and sometimes crushing part of weather out here on the high plains. (Ha! There are a lot of descriptive “D” words that describe hail!)
BUT….
There IS a good part! We got 1.60 hundredths of moisture out of this storm! That’s over 1 1/2 inches of moisture! And for farmers, that’s HUGE! Also, it’s early in the season, so none of the spring planted crops were in yet. Wheat? Well, that’s a different story…..although it wasn’t completely destroyed, the yields sure went down! As one old timer said…”This is next year country.”
Another good thing? There were no windows broken, no siding ruined, no roofs that need replacing. Those ruined flowers? Most of them will grow back–after a fashion, anyway. And remember all those piles of Cedar cones/flowers? Goodbye, drippy nose, and itchy eyes!
So…..all is not lost. There really IS a silver lining! Sometimes you just have to look to find it!
If you’re ever in need of a large capacity, precise rain gauge, here (paid link) is the one that we’ve used for years. If it’s freezing weather, or if you’re measuring snow, you just take off the top, and remove the middle piece–multi purpose!
Here is a clip from last summer’s storm…..which was way worse than this one, (turn up your volume) so you can experience the horrendous sound of hail being shot from the clouds…just in case you never have!
Tell me, do you live where there are hailstorms? Have you experienced the thrill of a watching, a prairie thunderstorm roll in, only to have thrill turn into despair, distress, and hopelessness as the hailstones start smacking and bouncing? Tell us in the comments! We want to hear your stories, too!
And, so, it is.
Thanks for coming!
Good Thoughts
“What doesn’t kill you makes your stronger.”
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