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.