High Maintenance Mom

We've had a few big storms recently (including the one last week that was going to dump 60 inches of snow at Mammoth while I was trying to get home) and this evening on our drive from school the kids saw their first hailstorm. They were very excited but by the time we got home the hail and rain had stopped. Just a few minutes ago there was very loud thunder followed by a torrential downpour (that's how I like to describe the multitude of cold, large drops that made the short walk from my office to my car seem endless)...

So we woke B up to touch the hail. Okay, he wasn't really asleep yet but he was in bed. B and the Pocket Physicist went outside in the hail, to talk about the hail, while I stayed dry searching for information on how hail is formed. Hail is formed when water droplets cycle in and out of the freezing zone several times before falling to the earth. Each time the droplet gets caught in the updraft and carried into the freezing zone, another layer of ice is added to the growing hailstone.

The largest hailstone recorded fell in Kansas on September 3, 1970 - it weighed almost 2 pounds. The hail we are getting is about the size of a small pea. ThisNOAA page on hail gives a good description of how hail is formed, has some great pictures, and a scale for estimating the size of the hailstones.