STORMS

Our area has been caught in a cycle of severe thunderstorms on a daily basis for several days.  The day dawns lovely.  By noon the clouds are starting to pile up and storms are spawning off the foothills of the Rockies.  By the time they cross Highway 2 they are wellformed and menacing.  Usually they reach us around 5 p.m. in a series of storms, two or three following each other at about 45 minute intervals.  They carry very heavy rains, lots of lightning and thunder, and hail.

Up to this afternoon we were spared great amounts of hail, but today was our turn.  The storm arrived around 2:15 p.m. Here are some pictures taken when the rain stopped.  This first one shows the sales building roof covered with hail.  Those shingles are a dark brown, underneath the white.

The balcony floor was quite solidly white:

 

The walkway to the deck and garden was white:

 

The lettuce and spinach looked pretty pitiful.

 

Those really droopy greens are a row of broad beans (fava beans).

 

The deck is not exactly ready for a picnic:

 

Jim just came in from a little tour around and says there is not all that much damage.  In a week or so the landscape and garden will have recovered, provided we don't get another hailstorm.

We started out the summer in a drought condition.  Then the deer came by the dozen (literally).  Then we had rain--buckets and buckets.  And today hail.  I begin to wonder if we will harvest ANYTHING from our garden this year.  The entire crop so far: one lettuce salad.

This is a photo of the government weather radar site.  Where we live is about in the center, just above the smallest circle.  To the right are the storms that passed through earlier.  To the left is the next line of storms coming at us.  They don't look as bad as the earlier batch.