Site icon MarLa Sink Druzgal

Mpumalanga Hailstorm

“Holy cow! We’re getting baseball-sized hail here!”

This was the text message from my husband, working in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa.

“Yeah, right.” I thought to myself. That’s a little far-fetched.

A small baseball size hail ball, but nonetheless impressive!

But sure enough, he followed it up with a couple photos of guys holding the hail in their hands. Not far off.

I couldn’t believe the size of this hail!

The storm eventually made its way to where we are living near Pretoria (Gauteng Province) and although hailstorms are normal for this time of year, the hail was unusually large.

No exposed car was safe from hail damage.

In the states, most of the times we’ve encountered hailstorms, we were also watching for a tornado. Here in this area of South Africa, we don’t worry about the tornadoes, but severe thunderstorms and lightning accompany these little car-busters.

The windshield industry saw a sudden upturn after this week’s hailstorm!

I’m not going to go into the science of hail formation. You can either wikitardia that, or better yet, How Stuff Works.

The hail had reduced its size to golf balls by the time Kurt reached home, and we stood in the doorway as the balls pelted our tin roof and cannonballed themselves into our swimming pool, spraying large plumes of water as they submerged.

A bucket of hail balls from this severe thunderstorm in Gauteng Province of South Africa (Photo credit 2013 Melissa Herr Perry)

I’ll leave you with this nice little video my husband took at his worksite of the hail coming down.

Happy Friday, dear readers, whatever your weather!

Love, Marla

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