Hale Hail

Another first for me late yesterday afternoon when in the midst of a pretty good downpour of rain I heard the most god-awful noise and after a moment looked outside to see very hale hail raining down and bouncing all over the deck.  David called me very soon after this began and while I chatted with him for a minute or two I did end the call to try to see what the heck was going on outside.  I opened the back door, leading out onto the covered portion of the deck, and was immediately struck by bouncing hail which was bouncing right into the door as well.  Moving to the front door it was even more exciting as the quantity of hail falling definitely picked up as well as the size.  Besides being somewhat taken by being involved in my first major hail storm like this I think I was most taken by the noise of it.  It seemed to last forever but was probably about 15 solid minutes or so.  No damage that I could see but I'll walk around the house to check things out.  So, that's my hail experience :)

Out on the deck shortly after the hail started coming down. 

 

A pretty poor shot trying to show this stuff bouncing around.  I'm standing in the open doorway as there was no way I was going outside, even under the cover.  See the area to the left where it looks like it's been cleared?  That's directly under the end of the roof.  As said, this stuff was bouncing.

 

Still coming down and piling up.  It was 62 degrees out for pete's sake!  If global warming was real this stuff would have melted on the way down!

 

Standing on the front porch after the hail had stopped falling for the most part.  That looks like a golfball-size hail stone to me!  I had called David back at about this time and told him that these large ones were pretty much everywhere, mixed in with the regulation-size stones.

Winter Wonderland

Finally... after reporting to those inquiring that I had not seen so much as a single snowflake blowing in the wind since the ice storm of January 2011... winter has come to Douglasville, Georgia!  Yesterday was a pretty crummy weather day... overcast, windy, and temperatures in the 40's.  Little did I know as the day wore on that a major weather change was about to set itself over the area.  Shortly before turning in for the night I glanced outside and to my shock I observed snowflakes raining down.  Well, not exactly raining down but present nonetheless.  I ran to get my camera to record the event and captured the storm moving in.

As you can clearly see, the snow was already starting to pile up on the railing of the deck...

 

... and on the deck itself!!

 

Well, acting like a giddy little boy I jumped into bed and fell asleep with thoughts of tomorrow's fun in the snow as visions of sugar plums danced in my head, whatever a sugar plum is.  I don't know how I managed to sleep soundly but I did and at the crack of 8:30 this morning I leapt from my bed to see if the snow had piled up.  I was not disappointed.

 

The deck was totally buried...

 

... and where last night just a few flakes landed, a snowdrift had formed on the railing!!

 

So, there you have it.  After passing through the months of December, January and February with considerable rain but nary a single flake, during the evening of March 2-3 winter's beauty has come to Douglasville.

 

On a related note, if anyone silly enough to believe in global warming can tell me a single thing... just one, single, itsy-bitsy thing... good about winter, I will listen attentively.