I woke up around 2:00 PM today after getting off from my last midnight shift. There were a couple of messages on my answering machine; one from my mom and the other from my dad, about an hour or so apart, saying that they would be in town and to not head home. Seeing that I had just gotten up, I was in no rush to go anywhere, so I stayed and waited. They arrived shortly around 2:20 PM, and we all agreed to go out to eat. Just then, a severe thunderstorm warning flashed on the TV screen. I thought, "well, it's probably not for our area." Wrong I was - and the storm was predicted to move through our area. I wasn't really all that concerned with it because it did not look like anything major on the radar and most of the time the warnings for our area end up being minor. My parents had picked up a "new" sewing table for my mom (it is actually a secondhand table) and were concerned with the impending rain. My dad had the truck, so there was nothing to protect it from getting wet. So my dad and I carried it into my apartment until the rain had passed. Then we headed out.
The skies looked very ominous to the north and west. Dark, menacing skies creeped closer to the city - and we were stuck in five mile-an-hour traffic in the middle of a construction zone. It started to sprinkle, but the heavy stuff had yet to reach us. We finally reached our destination - out favorite restaurant Applebees. We were inside the restaurant for roughly ten minutes before the brunt of the storm hit us. First it started to rain, then it picked up a little more, then it was a heavy downpour. Then it started to hail. It was small hail at first but it didn't take long before it got bigger and bigger. Eventually it became golf ball-size and was pounding on the roof of the restaurant and the cars parked outside. The lights flickered inside the restaurant and the power briefly went out. The wind picked up - gusting up to 60 mph blowing the construction barrels on the highway across the road surface. Cars were swerving around to avoid them. Light poles in the parking lot shook with the strong gust of the wind and the hail started to strip the leaves off the trees surrounding the parking lot. The hail started accumulating on the ground - looking almost like a wintery scene. It was absolutely surreal - and all of the customers in the restaurant received a front row seat to this amazing spectacle of nature. The hail kept falling and the rains kept pouring down.
The men working on the highway huddled in their vehicles, waiting for the storm to pass. Eventually, all traffic on the highway stopped, as it was just too dangerous to even drive - drivers waiting until the worst had passed. For awhile, it didn't seem like it would ever quit; the hail lasting for at least 10 minutes. The parking lot was even starting to flood out, with pools of hail swirling along in the mini rapids. Customers in the restaurant were taking pictures of the scene with their cell phones and exclaimed to themselves how incredible this looked. And finally, the storm eventually let up. The hail stopped and the rains became much lighter. The lightning was vivid for awhile, but that too had soon passed.
The TV's in the restaurant broadcast a snowy picture, signaling that the cable had been knocked out by the storm. Within ten minutes, it was back on. One of the TV's in the far back of the restaurant was broadcasting The Weather Channel and I happened to catch the warning being scrawled on the bottom of the screen. A Tornado Warning was issued for the county my parents lived and I grew up, and the cell was moving right towards our town! We became even more concerned to the prospect that this storm could do damage at home as well. All we could do is hope that it would weaken and provide nothing but beneficial rains.
We exited the restaurant and checked to see what kind of damage had been done to my dad's truck. Sure enough, the hood and roof the truck were peppered with small dents from the golf ball-sized hail. Later on, we noticed that both side-view mirrors had been chipped and broken by the onslaught of hail. A drive through the parking lot of the restaurant and the mall nearby also revealed that all of the other cars received similar damage. There were going to be a lot of insurance claims made by this storm. A drive around the area found a ton of leaves covering roads, all stripped off from the hail. An amazing pile of hail accumulated in low-lying areas and around drains, and a low layer of fog slowly rose from the chilly hail that was beginning to melt. As much as two inches of hail accumulated in some parts of the city, and even a report of three inch hail was recorded. Now that's incredible stuff! However, after hearing reports that the next street up from me experienced damage from hail, I grew quite concerned that my car was in bad shape.
We first made a stop at the local big box hardware store and as my dad lingered in there, the more antsy I got to leave. Finally, we did leave and we continued to see hail on our way back to my apartment as it slowly began to melt. As I reached my apartment, I grew uneasy and pretty concerned that my car was a wreck. But as we surveyed the other cars in the lot, it didn't seem to be as bad as I had imagined. My dad's truck faired much worse, but the hood of my car was peppered with small dents. There were a few hail dents on the roof of my car and on the truck, but it really wasn't that bad. If it was that bad, I was considering trading in my car - but I may just hold onto it for awhile longer now. There is definitely some dents from the hail, but like I said, not nearly as bad as my dad's truck. I think it helped that my car was sheltered a bit by my apartment building. Otherwise I think the damage might've been a lot worse.
So needless to say, it was a very interesting weather day in Marquette, MI - something unlike I had ever seen before. I had seen very small hail fall before, but nothing to that extent. The sheer power of the hail, along with the ferocity of the winds and the rains were something I will never forget. And for a storm that didn't seem like it could produce much, it sure turned out to be one for the record books.
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