So today, I was tracking a single cell severe thunderstorm as it trekked its way up I-44. The bad part was that I was at work and was scheduled until 10:00pm, so I was just keeping my fingers crossed hoping it would hit the building while I was at work. Bad news however, the storm fizzled out and was torn apart a mere 20 miles or so before it reached me. I was completely bummed out.
Come 9:45pm, I pull out my phone to check on the tornadoes that were causing issues in northern Missouri and central Illinois. What do I see? A monster was born to the southwest and was on a direct collision course with me while I was at work. Ecstatic, I start parading around the restaurant bragging about my new discovery and freaking everyone out who had cars in the parking lot.
All antsy, I kept asking my manager if I could count up my drawer and clock out. I then went outside, moved my car away from the tree that I parked near (can't trust these trees obviously, the one from yesterday is still lying in the parking lot), and went back inside. After various lightning bolts were hitting the ground less than 1/4 mile away, a worried off duty co-worker told me to quit going outside. I told her I'd be back to sit with her as soon as I got some of my stuff, so I ran out to my car and grabbed my radio, tablet, and some chargers. So I sat with her just watching the storm, and then it started hailing. I jumped up and ran outside only to be narrowly missed by a ~1.5" hailstone, which exploded on a parking curb. I grabbed the biggest piece of it and ran back inside and showed it around. I started to hear loud banging noises on the roof as the hail got more widespread. After repeated trips out one door, the lightning started to become very dangerous and close by.
Then another co-worker decided to get in on the fun. He brought a box from the back and wore it over his head like a turtle carapace. He brought another one for me so we were just running around in the parking lot while golf ball sized hail rained from the sky pelting our boxes. I'm assuming that anyone driving by on the highway probably thought we were drunk. After a minute or so, I leaned up against a railing and a quarter sized hailstone landed squarely on my little finger's knuckle. The shockwave resounded through my nerves and my whole arm tingled. I went back inside to hold the door open for the other dude to run in and out carting handfuls of hailstones to us. I let the wind blow tens of hailstones right through the door of the restaurant filling the whole walkway with ice. The first coworker grabbed several and dropped them down my shirt. The hail died out quickly after that, so I told them I was going to chase it off to the Illinois border.
After narrowly missing more lightning strikes and hydroplaning accidents from driving on hail coupled with strong wind (try pushing a heavy object across a thick layer of marbles with a fan blowing on it), I ended up driving through 7 different hailstorms in less than an hour. That puts my total of hailstorms at 15 over the last 2 days.
I have yet to inspect my car in daylight for further hail damage.
