More on the big hail stone now in Colorado - here are a couple of links:

A photo summary from Henry's leg of the great hail stone relay where he met up with National Weather Service officials in Cheyenne, WY and drove the stone to the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado to deliver it to internationally-renowned hail expert Dr. Charles (Charlie) Knight. . Henry Reges is the CoCoRaHS national coordinator and author of most of the "Messages of the Day" you see when you submit your precipitation reports.

Arriving in Colorado

A South Dakota regional news story with a couple of good pictures.  

Note the mistake here.  The headline says "World Record" but this is 

only a U.S. (and likely North American) record.  Global climate 

statistics indicate that the global record hail stone weighed 2.25 

pounds -- 5 ounces more than the recent Vivian, South Dakota stone.

News Story

Good Morning!
We're looking forward to a beautiful weekend here at Joe's Pond. Last night was a little chilly, in the 40's, but it's warming up fast and we're expecting high 70's or low 80's later.

Liz Randall sent me this photo from her Long Island garden. She is enjoying the butterflies and wanted to share with us. Thanks, Liz - it is beautiful. As usual, Liz's flowers are way ahead of ours here. My phlox is just starting to bloom.

We heard emergency vehicles going out earlier. I turned on the scanner and found out it was an accident on Rt. 2 near Point Comfort. Fred went down and got some pictures, but we don't know what happened or if anyone was hurt. The report on the scanner was "entrapment," and I just got word on the scanner that the person has been extricated and is being transported to the hospital. Apparently there was only one person in the car. There were lots of emergency personnel on hand, though. I think when there is a roll-over like this there is always a danger of fire, so it's important to get out of the car as quickly as possible. Ned and Carolyn Hamilton had a close call that way a few years ago.

It was pretty foggy when we first heard the sirens. The first photo is coming off West Shore Road onto Rt. 2. Next to the water it was very dense for a while. By the time Fred was coming back from West Danville, it had begun to clear a bit. Here is a slide show: Accident On Rt. 2, July 30, 2010

There was a comment about the hail story. Tom Morgan wrote: The hail story reminded me about a storm in Oct. of 2004 when we were living in Socorro, NM. Tennis ball sized hail! Half the roofs in town had to be replaced, sky lights were blown out and hundreds of cars were ruined in about 30 minutes. -Tom Morgan

Perhaps you'll be interested in what happened to one of those big hailstones . . . I had this today at 2:57 p.m. from Nolan Doesken at the University of Colorado:

Within the past hour, the largest fully-documented hail stone in terms of weight (1.94 pounds) and diameter (8.0 inches) has just reached its final resting place at the cold lab at the National Center for atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.. Henry Reges of the CoCoRaHS team had the honors of driving the 3rd leg of the relay that carried this stone successfully (carefully packaged and packed in dry ice) from the freezer of its finder in Vivian, South Dakota to the hail research facility in Boulder. The stone is now in the hands of Dr. Charles Knight who, interestingly, was already well established as a hail specialist back in 1970 when the Coffeyville, Kansas record hail stone was collected and documented.

The plans are to make a casting (mold) of this stone so that replicas can be displayed at the Historical Museum in Lyman County, South Dakota
and at the Aberdeen, SD National Weather Service Office. We'll also be posting some photos of the stone and its unveiling this AM in Boulder, CO.

Is this really the biggest hail stone ever to hit the U.S. -- well, probably not. Chances are a bigger stone fell sometime and somewhere. But the odds of capturing a stone this large and securing it intact are very low. So if you ever have giant hail (and please know "giant" is relative. In parts of the country anything over 2-3" is huge, up and down the Great Plains those size stones occur fairly often and you have to be in the 4-5" range to be really unusual. But anywhere in the country, stones over 5" in diameter are rare and well worth documenting.

By the way, it was 31 years ago today (I may be off a day or two) that Fort Collins was pummeled by large hail. I left town that day for a camping trip in Wyoming and didn't find out about if for over a week. Back then, the Denver Broncos had summer training camp here in Fort Collins so the big news story was all the fancy football player cars damaged by the hail. But the tragic part of the story was a local fatality where a baby was struck and killed while their panicked mother
ran carrying the child to shelter. There were also several injuries -- some broken arms with people covering their heads. So please remember, large hail is scary dangerous and deserves the greatest of respect.

Fred spotted what some folks would consider a "one horse operation," just outside of Danville this morning. Give FairPoint credit for protecting the environment. That horse can get to places the truck can't and he isn't going to dig up the grass or get stuck in the mud. Fred said he did seem inclined to wander off while waiting for the men to do whatever, though.

I get regular newsletters from a fellow by the name of Nolan Doesken out at the University of Colorado. He heads up the Community Collective Rain Hail and Snow reporting system I belong to. A couple days ago I got this and thought some of you might be interested:

When I wrote last week (Wednesday, July 21) I was recalling some of the large storms and catastrophic flash floods that have occurred at this time of year in past years. We wondered where the next big storms would occur. It didn't take long. Much of the eastern 2/3 of the country has been sweltering with miserably hot and humid weather conditions. Where cooler air approached this oppressive air mass, wild weather ensued. That very night 6-7" rains fell over northern Holt County in northeast Nebraska with slightly less in nearby portions of South Dakota.. The
very next night (Thursday July 22) parts of NE Iowa, extreme NW Illinois and the Milwaukee area in southeast Wisconsin got pounded. Some locations got more than 8" of rain in one night. The next night (Friday night into Saturday morning) the Chicago area took the fire hose with many areas reporting 6-8" of rain. If you've never had 8" of rain in a day, it's quite an experience and one you will remember.

Storms shifted eastward Saturday and Sunday with plenty of fanfare but not quite as much rain. Saturday northern Indiana took the worst of it with upwards of 4" of rain in some spots. Sunday it was the mid Atlantic that saw the fury of severe weather. Interestingly the wettest place in the country last night was Las Cruces in southern New Mexico on the banks of the Rio Grande. Some parts of town measured over 3.50" of rain and they are getting more rain today. If you've never been to the desert, a rain like that makes a real mess. With hard soils and sparse
vegetation, the water runs off really fast carrying plenty of mud with it.

Other areas have "enjoyed" the heat but missed the storms. Arkansas, parts of Tennessee and some parts of the Southeast haven't had much to measure this past week. Likewise, the West Coast from Mexico to Canada has gone without rain for weeks. But it is their dry season so it's not that unusual.

Huge Hail -- July 23 in South Dakota

Hail reports from CoCoRaHS volunteers in Lyman County in south central South Dakota caught our attention Friday evening (July 23rd). One observer noted stones up to 3" in diameter. But that's not the half of it. Starting this morning, I began getting messages from officials in South Dakota and at the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina. It turns out that stones larger than 8" in diameter hit near the tiny town of Vivian in that same county. Stones were measured and saved, and a team will soon be working to verify if this is the largest hail stone (based on diameter) ever measured and officially documented in the U.S. It may break the record set just a few years ago in Aurora, Nebraska.

Now that's hard for most of us to imagine - six or eight inch diameter hail. That's like having baseballs or larger missiles pelting down on you. That must do serious damage to property and people, if they are unfortunate enough to be caught out in it.

He went on to urge us to make hail reports whenever we observe it. They have hail pads - foil covered foam pads that help measure the size of normal hail. I reported hail about a week ago, but I don't have a hail pad. I just reported "pea size" hail and how long it lasted, which was about a minute. But that report would be significant to a scientist somewhere, so I did my part.

By the way, I've been seeing a lot of e-mail messages caught in my spam that read something like, "Confirm Your Email Account," and they look very authentic, but then they ask for your user name and password, date of birth and phone number. This is a total DO NOT DO IT red flag, and I've been ignoring them for a long time, but the other day I got a warning that these actually contain a virus, so in addition to giving someone your personal information, if you respond, you could also leave your computer open to a serious virus. Most recently, the e-mail has said a virus had been detected in my e-mail program and that's why they needed the information. All bogus. If you have any doubts, contact your e-mail server (but don't reply to that e-mail!) or just Google for information. There are plenty of warnings posted about this sort of thing.

Summer Thursday Dinners at Cabot United Church

Pulled Pork, rolls, pickles, cole slaw, beverage and desserts.

Served from 5:30 to 7:00 with take-outs available.

A charge of $8 will go to the church fuel oil fund.

We appreciate your support.

JOIN US THURSDAYS: June 24^th, July 15th, July 29^th, August 12th

Cabot United Church – On the Common, Rte. 215, Cabot, VT.

Call for directions or information: 563-2278

Ted Decker sent these two pictures of our loon families. Ted writes:
Took these pictures this afternoon of the loon chicks. 2631 was taken up by the islands and 2637 was taken on the 1st pond. it looks as though the loon chick in the family at the north end of the pond is much more advanced than the one on the 1st pond.

Thanks for the great photos, Ted. I noticed right away how fuzzy the little guy in the second picture is compared to the one above. I think there are at least two weeks difference in their ages. They'll both be ready to take off this fall, I'm sure.

I mentioned yesterday that the Joe's Pond Cookbook is available again. In case any of you aren't familiar with it, there's a pretty good description on the web site. Here's the link: www.joespondvermont.com/cookbook

Well, it finally happened. Our microwave quit on us today. It was at noon when Fred was going to thaw out a jelly doughnut or something. It just went "pfffft," and nothing worked. We checked the power and everything was okay - it was definitely that the machine had just quit. We looked for something like a fuse on it, but there's nothing showing on the outside, at least, and nothing about such a thing in the manual. I have a hard time believing it has died - it has always worked so well, never even a hiccup. The thing is, it was our first microwave. I resisted getting one for a long time. I don't know if it was because I thought they give off too much negative something-or-other or that I was just being a snob about it, but it was never high on my list of necessary kitchen appliances.

I don't know what or who changed my mind, but in the fall of 1992, we splurged on a big, combination microwave convection oven with all the bells and whistles. I said if I was going to have one I wanted to be able to put big dishes in it, needed a turntable, and would expect it to perform miracles. I remember angling it into the corner of the counter space. We studied the manual and I began trying out recipes. Before I knew it, I was using it for nearly every meal, and sometimes cooked a whole meal in it. There was a disaster one time with chicken - I guess I programmed it wrong - the chicken was way beyond salvaging, but other than that, it was great - I made everything from corn bread to peanut brittle with it. I tried using the convection feature a few times, but never did get the hang of that. It was too loud, took too long and I thought must be using more electricity than it should. I probably had that programmed wrong, too, but I just didn't like it.

So now my trusty microwave is sitting idle, unresponsive, dead. We called several places, starting off with the people at Sharp Corp., and the general theme has been that it costs more to repair them than it does to get a new one. I keep saying to Fred, "but what if it's only something simple like a fuse or a loose connection?" He has assured me we'll do our darnedest to find out if that's the case, but given the age of the thing, I know he's thinking it's a lost cause. I managed to get a meal without it tonight, and I really don't mind going back to the "old ways" of cooking temporarily, but having the microwave to thaw things and steam veggies while the rest of the meal is on the stove is mighty handy. Besides that, there is that serious problem of conserving energy, right? Now I need to convince myself that the new microwaves probably use far less energy than the old one . . . and that just might send us to the appliance store tomorrow - but it will be hard to take the old one to be recycled.

In spite of the household emergency at lunch time, we managed to get quite a lot done today. Fred got the JPA cookbook up on the web site and I answered a bunch of e-mails I'd been putting off because they took some time-consuming research. I had a note from Marge Greaves in Danville that she had some Cabot town reports for me if I wanted them, so we picked them up this afternoon. While I was doing that, Fred was meandering along Hill Street taking some pictures. Hill Street, Danville VT

When we got back to West Danville and stopped for the mail, it was quiet at the stores, but there were lots of people at the beach (see photo). There has been a brisk wind all day and in spite of the temperature being around 80, the breeze kept it cool. Couldn't ask for a nicer day. We need to take advantage of the nice weather and get outside and enjoy it. Summer begins to wind down once we get into August. I said that to someone today and got a surprising answer: "I'm glad it's almost fall. I don't like all this sunshine." I hope she was kidding.