Fortunately for me (and I’m being sarcastic) it only hit about a five square block of town, and both of my houses got in on the bargain. The hail was so intense that you could not see across the street. The hail lasted for about 20 minutes or longer, with hailstones the size of golf balls.

My caragana hedge looks like a bunch of sticks. There’s about 4 inches of leaves and branches I haven’t got raked off my lawn yet, because unbelievable as it sounds, there were still hailstones under the leaves at noon today. And the temperature is around 25 degrees. The shingles at both houses got beat up pretty bad, and I lost a few “moon-ray” lights. The bedding out plants and flowers look like they have been through a paper shredder.

Of course, I have photos to show. Click on the thumbnails for a bigger image.

I don’t think I have ever seen this much hail. As you can see, it looks like snow banks on the street. The hail and broken branches and leaves from trees plugged up the catch basins, so the rain couldn’t get away (and it was raining hard) and there were quite a few flooded streets.

You can see the size of the hailstones that hit in these photos. My car is camouflaged now, probably to hide the new dents. And my hammock makes a great man-sized ice bucket – if you don’t mind maple leaves for garnish in your favourite beverage. By the way, my lawn isn’t that green – that’s a layer of tree leaves and broken branches covering the grass.