Extreme Summer Bad Weather

When the weather warms up to the 70’s in the early summer, we move on to bigger weather events. Though we have nothing on tornado alley, we get some pretty big thunderstorms up here. Hail damage is our insurance companies biggest nightmare (right behind deer/car collisions). This beautiful thunderhead was at least 30 miles south of our homestead though they do manage to come right over us from time to time.

Cumulus mammalus clouds are in indication of severe weather about. These were directly overhead..

Some of these big thunderheads are pretty ominous.  The lightning, the high winds and the hail they produce can and have been destructive. We have experienced gust of 70 mph and had golf ball sized hail since we moved to the ranch 7 years ago.

This is not huge hail but it would give your car a bad day. Here is Callie Ray Williams holding up some good sized stone after they sat out in the sun for an hour. They were softball sized when they fell. We had to replace over 3000 square feet of metal roof but all ours cars were parked in our big barn.  Whew! If we see a storm coming, we put all over vehicles under roof in our large barn. No hail damage yet on any vehicles in 7 years though there have been some good storms.

When it is dry, the high winds can cause dust storm. The building being obscured by dust is only 100 feet away. This wind whipped out from a dry front coming in from the north. Very little warning preceded this dust storm. It would have been a bad thing to be out in. fortunately we were at the homestead not at a fossil site.

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