Phoenix hit by hard storm and hail

[Lionheart]

Its been a while since I have seen it hit this hard here in Phoenix.

Today, golf ball size hail hit the house. My sister was here, her car in front, no place to hide it. I tried throwing a blanket over the hood to protect it. Didnt work. 7 divots in the hood alone. When the ice balls were empacting her side and front windshield glass, they sounded like big rocks being shot at the car. It was pretty grim.

My puppy kept trying to go after some of the ice balls! I was yelling at him to get back in the garage. But as they hit and skipped accross the drive way, he was after them. Glad they didnt hit him. If they could dent a metal hood that bad, imagine how that would feel on your knoggin!

Luckily, we are all ok. I-17 is flooded downtown at an underpass. The emergency pump must not have kicked in. Too deep to cross. Here the underpasses fill up emediately with water due to the water flooding the desert in a flash flood like scenario. The ground doesnt absorb the water, it just flows to the lowest area's in a mad flood. So we have these big pump houses located at each underpass that kick in when it floods. If it doesnt, the ENTIRE AREA around that freeway becomes a neighborhood swimming pond/mini lake, with people jumping off the freeway into the water. Gets wild. But, very very very very very rare, lol...

Life in the desert.

[Lionheart]

Some more pics..

[WarHorse47]

Oh Man, that hurts. Looks like we left just in time.

We were in Scottsdale last weekend with the 110 degree temps, and in Payson all week with 90 degree temps. It finally rain before we left and we had some interesting lighting storms as we drove I-40 to Bakersfield, but no hail fortunately.

--WH

[Chacha]

Man, that is pretty huge hail!
Can you un-ding the dings?
Scary!

[Lionheart]

Man, that is pretty huge hail!
Can you un-ding the dings?
Scary!


You should have heard them hitting the tile roof in the house, lol...

I havent thought about un-dinging. That might work. But 7 of them, and on a beautifully shaped hood. Might not work.


You guys in the midwest and over around North Carolina probably see hail 3X that size 4 times a year. Really rare for us dust dwellers...

[paiken]

Fortunately for me here in central Phoenix, the hail was only about 1/4 to 3/8 in diameter. But the wind was something else. I guestimate that it was gusting around 45-50 mph with torrential downpours (I think maybe 1.5 to 2.25 in in less than 1 hour). The storm that ran through around lunchtime was the scariest...lots of rotation in that one. Nearly spawned a funnel cloud in my area. One bonus was that I took the day off today for my wife's cataract surgery (successful, thank you very much) so I didn't have to deliver the mail in that mess. Unfortunately, the forecast calls for more of the same tomorrow. The only good thing is that the temps are finally back into livable range.

[Lionheart]

Glad the surgery went well Paiken. My mom went through that with both eyes. Alot to go through, but so amazing how they now do it, such a fast process.

I heard about the first wave. We didnt get it over here by the Arrowhead area, borders Sun City. I heard on South Mountain, they had gusts up to 80+ MPH. Thats intense. I wonder if they lost some of the antennaes up there.

Remember that cyclone we had about 10 or 12 years ago? North Phoenix and I think PV were out of electricity for a week.

[OBIO]

Lionheart

Glad you and the pup are okay....sorry to see your sis's beautiful Pontiac Solstice got dinged up....that is one of the sexiest cars of all time in my opinion. There are a few here in town...one being the super/turbocharged GPX/GTX variant....what a screamer that thing must be. My in-law's neighbor has a red Solstice and I have been unsuccessful in getting her to let me take it for a spin.

My Dad was a body man...you know, the guy who fixes wrecked or damaged cars....and some years back....I guess it's been 27 or more years, getting old.....there was a huge hail storm in our area. Tons and tons of cars with broken glass and dings all over. Dad developed a way to pop the dings out real quick like and shared it with the other reputable body shops in the area. He found that if he took an Oxy/Cet torch and slowly heated the metal around the ding and took a body spoon and bopped the ding on top, it would pop back out to nearly perfect. A bit of grinding, a swipe of spot glaze and the ding was fixed. The body shops and their body men made a fortune using Dad's hail damage repair technique.

Tim

[Terry]

Lionheart


My Dad was a body man...you know, the guy who fixes wrecked or damaged cars....and some years back....I guess it's been 27 or more years, getting old.....there was a huge hail storm in our area. Tons and tons of cars with broken glass and dings all over. Dad developed a way to pop the dings out real quick like and shared it with the other reputable body shops in the area. He found that if he took an Oxy/Cet torch and slowly heated the metal around the ding and took a body spoon and bopped the ding on top, it would pop back out to nearly perfect. A bit of grinding, a swipe of spot glaze and the ding was fixed. The body shops and their body men made a fortune using Dad's hail damage repair technique.

Tim

I had a Jeep CJ-7 that got caught in a Phoenix hailstorm back in the 90's. The body shop used the method you describe and it came out perfect. Fortunately I'm in the far Northwest valley and only got a couple showers the last couple days. Wonder what today will bring?

[Daveroo]

im in northern california....auburn as it says...but the sierra nevada crest is getting heavy snow fall allready..which is rare..it usually doesnt snow until later...5 inches in places yesterday and its snowing right now according to the news (6:40am)

[brad kaste]

A large hail storm hit the Chicagoland area big time this past summer. Within weeks,....various roofing sales representatives were walking the neighborhood streets signing up potential 'new roof' clients. No matter how old the current roof was,....he'd explain to the homeowner...."Jus' notify your home owner's insurance company and let them pick up the cost blah blah blah." No wonder insurance rates are so high around here.....

[traindriver98]

We didn't get hail here in NW Tucson, Just the wind and rain. I don't know how well it works, but I've heard some people talking about using dry ice. They would put a peice on the ding and wait for the dent to pop out. They said the dry ice needs to be right out of the freezer. Heard about this in OKC.

[Tako_Kichi]

The theory behind the dry ice is that it super-cools the small area under it causing the metal to contract and therefore forces the ding to pop back up.

How well it works in practice is another matter.

It's the opposite of what OBIO described i.e. using heat to pop it back up.

[Penzoil3]

:wavey: I work downtown (Phoenix) at the main rental car facility for Sky Harbor Airport. We had customers coming in whose planes were circling so long they had to divert for fuel. Some went to Flagstaff refueled and came back, some went to Las Vegas, and back.
The storm was so loud; that out in the garage, at the exit gates, we were yelling ourselves hoarse to be heard at all.
I just bought a 2005 GMC Sierra Sunday. It was out in the employee lot. When the storm hit I cringed. I was fortunate to have no damage ! The newest thing I ever bought, my new toy, my pretty baby truck! Whew!
LOL
Sue

[demorier]

I just had to dig this one up from years ago. I was watching this cricket test match here in Brisbane when a big storm hit. The ground staff have to cover the cricket pitch and were getting smashed with hail stones. Some of the teams ran there batting helmets out for the ground staff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkxHaPguq9Q

[Sascha66]

That is one beautiful car, I hope it can be fixed. Looking at the size of those hailstones, you should throw a mattress on the hood next time!

I love the photo with the doggy looking at the storm clouds!

[Aviator32]

I am on vacation in Scottsdale right now and got caught in that hailstorm on Tuesday as I was out walking back to the hotel. The clouds over the mountains were getting darker and darker and I thought I had enough time to make it back but it all happened very quickly - rain, small hail and then golf ball sized hail for ten - fifteen minutes. I thought the world was going to end. I had sheltered under a tree but sprinted to the porch of a To Let building in the Scottsdale Airpark and just waited for it to stop. I was soaked to the skin, cold and pretty scared - branches from the tree I had been sheltering under were flying past me and I wondered if bits of building would follow. I've travelled quite a bit and experienced some pretty extreme weather but this was probably the most violent I have ever seen mother nature. The scariest thing of all was that just as the very large hail was falling I heard a business jet taking off from Scottsdale aiport and I was convinced it was going to come straight back down again somewhere near me!

[Chacha]

I am on vacation in Scottsdale right now and got caught in that hailstorm on Tuesday as I was out walking back to the hotel. The clouds over the mountains were getting darker and darker and I thought I had enough time to make it back but it all happened very quickly - rain, small hail and then golf ball sized hail for ten - fifteen minutes. I thought the world was going to end. I had sheltered under a tree but sprinted to the porch of a To Let building in the Scottsdale Airpark and just waited for it to stop. I was soaked to the skin, cold and pretty scared - branches from the tree I had been sheltering under were flying past me and I wondered if bits of building would follow. I've travelled quite a bit and experienced some pretty extreme weather but this was probably the most violent I have ever seen mother nature. The scariest thing of all was that just as the very large hail was falling I heard a business jet taking off from Scottsdale aiport and I was convinced it was going to come straight back down again somewhere near me!


Hey Aviator,

Welcome to Scottsdale! I have visited that area but it was in August (the hottest month) and enjoyed the small aircrafts and food and friends! I have not seen the hail in AZ but I have experienced hail and hurricane here in Florida. Stay safe!

You could have called Lionheart, Paiken, Terry, Penzoil3 and all other Arizonians for help! LOL

[Lionheart]

The scariest thing of all was that just as the very large hail was falling I heard a business jet taking off from Scottsdale aiport and I was convinced it was going to come straight back down again somewhere near me!


That would be scary! Goodness... Those turbines ingesting 'stones' sends shivers up my back. Why would they want to take off in that!?? crazy... I would be racing it into a sheltered hanger.

Phoenix is notorius for blue skies... Never weather like this. We did have one storm, actually two within one week, back in 1995, two cyclones, registering 120 MPH horizontally. They called it a city wide macro down draft or something. It was similar in weather pattern, large hail and then pure winds, etc. We were out of electricity for days. Our tree in the back yard fell over, filling the entire backyard with pure flora. Look out the window and its all leaves, lol. Pretty scary though when it happened. The next morning on 'hit 1', I remember taking my bike out to see the main street by the house. No traffic, no noise, no sign of life, palm tree debris everywhere, branches and leaves and stuff. Mud and sand build up from mild street flooding. Parked semi trailers that were perpindicular to the winds were 'ALL' on their sides all around, like the construction trailers in the field near us.

I guess thats what they live through yearly in the Midwest... eeeks...