Mother Nature is clearly angry about something

Holy hail, Batman! Although my neighborhood did not see hail the size of golf balls, as some people apparently witnessed, those pieces of hail in my yard were nothing to sneeze at.

Actually, I missed the first wave of the storm. Jordan and I had been swimming at the pool for almost an hour after school when the sky grew dark. I thought I saw some lightening through the glass ceiling/sliding doors, but I decided that a few minutes in the hot tub would probably not kill me. After a few more flashes of light, I reasoned it was best to get out. I was not so smart, however, that I did not then proceed to take a shower; I had to get all that chlorine off us! As were finishing up, I could really hear (what I thought was) the rain. But by the time we dried off, got dressed, and gathered our things, the rain had pretty much stopped, and we walked outside to just a few sprinkles and a partly sunny sky, oblivious to what had happened.

On the way home, I saw what looked like snow, however, on the ground. Then I heard an in-progress emergency bulletin on the radio, warning of damaging rain in Westmoreland County. I tuned to another station after that, and heard the tail end of a warning that suggested seeking shelter and lying flat outside if no shelter was available. Kind of scary, but I assumed it did not apply to us.

When we got home, I saw the hail in our yard, which I promptly scooped up, placed into a freezer bag, and stored in the freezer (no idea why). I figured the worst of it was over, and for awhile, things were actually sunny. But within 30 minutes, the second wave hit, complete with hail, thunder and lighting, and some gusty winds. I willed our roof, which has been living on borrowed time for a couple of years, to hold up, and Jordan grabbed the flashlight, just in case. Fortunately, the storm passed quickly, we never lost our power (which has happened about 20 times in the last two years), and our cars were unscathed.

Unfortunately, others in the next county were not so lucky. You just don't think a tornado is going to hit your house/neighborhood/etc. in western PA. I remember when we had a micro (or was it macro) burst in the last century. But this baby packed a big punch. As far as I know, there were no injuries, so thank God for that. But I can hear my one uncle saying, just as he did when AIDS was becoming prevalent and was pretty much a death sentence, that God is not happy about what we are doing.

Be careful out there.