Warrandyte was hit by the mother of all hail storms yesterday afternoon [January 19th, 2020], and I have to admit, we were scared. The roof is corrugated iron, and the hail stones, some as big as golf balls, sounded like machine gun bullets trying to smash their way in. And that’s without the thunder and lightning adding their bit. And it just wouldn’t stop.
Mogi [dog] was shivering like a leaf and Golli [cat] was yowling in terror. The Offspring and I just stood in the kitchen, peering out at the devastation and muttering ‘I don’t believe this’.
These are some of the photos I took once the worst of the storm had eased:
As odd as it may sound, the humidity after the hail storm was intense, and the temperature was actually warm, so the layer of icy hail stones created a mist that became heavier as it flowed up the hill towards the house. Very strange.
Just realised that some of the hail was bigger than your average golf ball! Those are full sized bricks on the side of the last picture, yet look at the size of some of those hail stones by comparison!
We never get snow, but I found myself having to shovel hail stones off the deck as if they were snow. And this, in the middle of one of our hottest summers…wtf?
We’ve since learned that Warrandyte was pretty much at the epicentre of yesterday’s storm and suffered quite a bit of damage. In low lying areas, some of the houses suffered broken windows and flooding. And every car left out in the open, is now pockmarked with dents.
Personally, we took very little damage. The Offspring’s car is dented, and one small tile broke on the small side deck, but other than that, we came through the storm surprisingly well. It’ll take me forever to rake up the carpet of shredded leaves and branches covering the ground, but my baby apples survived, and I’d harvested most of the apricots already, so I think we’ve been very lucky.
On that note, I’ll leave you with a pic of the apricot cake I made two days ago. It’s garnished with apricot compote, and all the apricots came from my own tree. Can’t complain. 🙂
cheers
Meeks
Meeka's Mind 
May 22nd, 2020 at 12:10 am
Let’s hope hail is like lightning and doesn’t strike the same spot twice.
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May 22nd, 2020 at 9:42 am
Hah! Amen to that. 😀
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May 21st, 2020 at 11:09 am
I am glad you survived it without any major problems. The pictures were definitely fantastic, as I have never seen a hail storm that bad.
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May 21st, 2020 at 2:59 pm
hi Geri. Yeah, it was quite spectacular. We did get a little bit of damage, including the Offspring’s car that now has dents all over it, but nothing major. The neighbours experienced flooding because their gutters overflowed and even that wasn’t the worst of it. Then again, given everything that’s happened the last six months…-shrug-
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January 22nd, 2020 at 11:58 am
Madness y’all! I’ve seen hail that size but not at that concentration. Glad your property fared well! I used to live in a part of Tornado Alley that got hail a lot. It’s pretty common to replace the roof every few years there. I don’t know how metal roofs go, but we had to make sure our roof didn’t have small leaks that could do damage over time.
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January 22nd, 2020 at 2:04 pm
Yeah, it was pretty intense. My roof is steep with gutterguard over the guttering so the hail stones pretty much just slid off. My neighbours have a fairly flat roof that stored up the hail stones. They ended up with water coming inside. I suspect tiled roofs fair less well. 😦
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January 21st, 2020 at 2:39 pm
You posed the question earlier in the comments if this particular storm and climate change were linked … I think it’s safe to assume that ALL climatic events from now on (and indeed for the last 15 years or so) are influenced, to greater and lesser degrees, by climate change. 😦
Glad to hear there was no great damage done, but damn, hail on a tin roof sure is impressive. 🙂
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January 21st, 2020 at 2:41 pm
That hail storm actually made our local news – with similar photos tho those you took.
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January 21st, 2020 at 4:47 pm
Wow…I knew it was wild but…that’s amazing.
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January 21st, 2020 at 4:47 pm
I suspect you’re right, Widds. I guess, like everyone else, I was kind of hoping it was still something in the future. This scares me. Probably a good thing but…:/
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January 21st, 2020 at 1:10 am
Hail is a funny animal. I’m glad you came through it safely. I’ve never seen that much hail, or stones so big! I’m a little (a lot!) jealous of your fresh fruit. We used to have fruit trees, but something happened to each of them, and now we have none. 😦 How do you keep the wasps from spoiling all the fruit?
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January 21st, 2020 at 11:52 am
We don’t get wasps, but we do have a lot of possums and cockatoos. The possums live in the gum trees and look for food wherever they can find it. I don’t mind sharing with them, but the cockatoos? grrrr….they’re big birds, tend to fly in flocks and they’re destructive. They will often break of branches just for the hell of it. And they ‘play’ with the green fruit. Can’t think of any other way of describing it. They’ll peck at it and pull it off the tree. Not just one fruit, but as many as they can reach. Not my favourite bird.
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January 22nd, 2020 at 5:09 am
You need a scarecockatoo. The wasps tunnel into the fruit. They can spoil a lot of them. Then the fruit looks good, but it’s hollow inside. 😦
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January 22nd, 2020 at 10:50 am
I have a dog and cats. You’d think that’d be enough but no… I got off my butt and put netting over what little fruit remains after the hail storm.
Ick, those wasps sound just awful. You’d have to scrutinise every single mouthful. 😦
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January 20th, 2020 at 2:32 pm
Good to hear you had no serious damage, and that some places are getting real rain. That apricot cake looks yummy!
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January 20th, 2020 at 10:18 pm
Yes, it’s raining as I type. A gentle rain for a change, and very welcome. 🙂
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January 21st, 2020 at 6:44 am
😀
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January 20th, 2020 at 2:27 pm
I wonder how many times we can say ‘Crazy Weather’ 😀
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January 20th, 2020 at 10:19 pm
Yeah. 🙂 I think we’re still at the stage of wonderment. Soon enough well accept it as normal. That worries me.
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January 20th, 2020 at 1:51 pm
Mist on hail–that’s an uncommon weather phenomenon.
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January 20th, 2020 at 1:53 pm
Yeah, it surprised the hell out of us too. I can only assume it’s because the air was actually really warm, despite the hail storm.
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January 20th, 2020 at 1:56 pm
I just looked it up–it’s called hail fog.
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January 20th, 2020 at 10:20 pm
Wait..you mean there’s actually a name for it? Wow…0.o
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January 20th, 2020 at 12:59 pm
I thought of you when I saw the news last night – glad you came through okay, and glad the apples survived!
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January 20th, 2020 at 1:17 pm
lol – thanks, Cage. I was very surprised, to be honest. Happy to take all the luck I can get. 🙂
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January 20th, 2020 at 12:13 pm
OMG that looks terrible, and would have sounded very scary indeed! But yes, at least it’s water in some form… We’ve just had 2 days of torrential rain up here in Northern NSW, and we can practically hear the bush sighing with relief…
That cake looks delicious: I never liked apricots till i moved to Adelaide and had my own old tree in the garden- always covered in fruit- used to give boxes away every summer- became addicted! 🙂 G
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January 20th, 2020 at 1:20 pm
I’m so relieved to hear you guys have been getting some real rain! Damned if I know what’s happening with our weather, but rain is always good.
I grew up eating tree-ripened fruit coz my Dad was a mad keen gardener. He used to graft a couple of different varieties onto every fruit tree. Then for years it was like living in a desert. Apricots and most other fruit in the supermarkets tasted like…nothing. Ditto tomatoes. As soon as Ihad a place of my own, growing fruit became an obsession. 🙂
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:23 am
Glad no severe damage was done! I see from the news there has been a fair amount of trouble from it in Melbourne and other places. Quite a contrast from drought and fires in a sense, though I suppose it won’t have much reduced the fires, or the risks of more. And yet I keep thinking it is part of the same climate change mix, in which weather chaos becomes the new normal.
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:33 am
Yeah, Warrandyte is a fringe suburb of Melbourne and is located right smack in the middle of the ‘Green Wedge’. As the name suggests, it’s a wedge of native vegetation that pretty much follows the Yarra River into the heart of Melbourne. It burns really well. Apparently it attracted hail storms as well.
I don’t know if there’s any direct link between this storm and climate change, but I can say that I haven’t seen anything like it in the 15 years I’ve lived here. Maybe it’s just a 1-in-25 year event, or maybe it’s the first taste of the new normal. Not a pleasant thought.
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:19 am
Glad to hear you survived the frozen deluge in safety and without terrific damage. That luscious apricot dessert looks awesome!
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:37 am
Thanks, Bette. The storm was an…experience. The cake is an Italian recipe that uses olive oil instead of butter. Super simple to make and it lasts really well in the fridge. The compote is dead simple too, just apricots and a /little/ sugar. Because it’s tree ripened fruit, it’s juicy and naturally sweet so cooks in its own juice.
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:12 am
I’m glad you didn’t sustain much damage. Another way to look at it is that this is water – just what you need right now.
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January 20th, 2020 at 11:39 am
lmao – well said Yvonne! And you’re right, it’s water that melted slowly, allowing a fair bit of it to soak in. That said, there was fairly torrential rain as well, and that did run off very quickly. But the ice stayed around long after the rain so, yeah, definitely glass half full.
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