Hail

We had a surprise thunderstorm form at 4:00 pm yesterday. I was in Blanchester and suddenly it turned dark with lightning and thunder off in the distance to the east near the farm.

The road wasn't wet until I got to the edge of the farm on SR 28 at the curve at the bottom of the hill where the newer Wisconsin Glacial Till soils start. There was a rainbow to the south and east as the sun was shining behind me.

I got home after 5 and LuAnn said it hailed for 10 minutes of pea sized hail, enough to turn the road and lawn white. That is pretty unusual for this time of the year. It was 80 degrees though so it didn't last long.

It shredded a few of the corn leaves, splitting them in half. It also blew some holes through the soybean leaves, probably bruising pods and corn kernals. I would say it was light damage but it was some damage.

The beans were a bright colored dark green with a white aura around them. I wasn't able to snap a picture before it was gone. It did push the tallest heaviest plants down so the canopy looked shorter and not as full as when I left.

I got my NEXRAD rain report for the week and it said this farm got almost an inch all week and the new farm got 1.32 inches, five miles to the east and south. It didn't have last night's rain total in it and I imgaine that added a couple of tenths to the total.

Date Total 09/05/2011 09/06/2011 09/07/2011 09/08/2011 09/09/2011 09/10/2011 09/11/2011
Bull Farm 1.40 0.60 0.15 0.17 0.40 0.03 0.00 0.05
Hershey Farm 1.10 0.52 0.08 0.11 0.29 0.02 0.00 0.08
New Farm 1.32 0.80 0.10 0.12 0.29 0.01 0.00 0.00
Home Farm 0.97 0.29 0.11 0.16 0.40 0.01 0.00 0.00
Ledford Farm 0.97 0.29 0.13 0.16 0.38 0.01 0.00 0.00
Hacker Farm 1.70 0.97 0.08 0.27 0.36 0.01 0.01 0.00

Bill is working on new tools for his www.spatialrainfallconsulting.com website.

This works a lot better than me chasing down rainfall data from rain gauges over the area we farm.

Ed