Metorological Madness

We've finally had a gorgeous summery day. Sunny, warm, not too humid. It was perfect. The only extra thing that the husband and I could ask for is, ahem, for it not to be Art Fair weekend. The Art Fair was fun the first couple of years we lived here in the Cake Eater Pad; ever since, however, it's become an absolute pain in the ass. For three days we're inundated by people. Lots and lots of people. Who crowd out the way to our usual shopping destinations. Like the grocery store, the drug store, etc. They're all over the place, and, quite frankly, my greatest personal fear is that the husband and I are going to get caught up in one of these moo-ish crowds, that he (meaning the husband) is going to lose it entirely, and that there will be broken necks and blood running into the sewers. If people could just learn how to freakin' WALK, we wouldn't have a problem. Alas...suffice it to say, we're over it, even if there are a gyros or fried little donuts covered in cinnamon sugar suddenly within walking distance.

Anyway, today, as I mentioned, was gorgeous, but a little before six pm CDT, I noticed the sky was going dark gray. Everything went still around six, and then, about five after, all hell broke loose. The wind howled. The rain poured, and completely overwhelmed our gutters, bypassing the downspouts on both sides of the house, but, most importantly, I experienced something I'd never experienced before: a hail storm that lasted longer than five minutes.

Want to see what that sort of wreckage looks like?

Here's the steps on the front porch

Here's a quarter, for scale

Here's my freakin' shredded hosta. One of them. Everything's pretty much trashed.

Here's the street...all flooded and icy on the last day of May

See the tents in the distance? That's the Art Fair. The poor bastards. I'm fairly certain they closed early today. Again. Just like yesterday, because there was another storm then as well. Quite frankly, with the amount of wind, ice and water, I'm amazed that any of those tents are standing.

Some dude crossing the street in not the best choice of available footwear. That had to be cold.

At the time of this writing, it's 7:43 CDT. There is STILL hail on the grass and the sidewalks. Because the front came through, it broke the warmth and we dropped, oh, about fifteen degrees in five minutes. As the ground is warm, and the air is cold---we have a nice fog settling in. According to radar, there's another round coming in later. GOOD TIMES!

Posted by Kathy at May 31, 2008 06:45 PM | TrackBack