No hail...yet... but 8 inches of true heavy spring snow over night up here in SW Montana.....being late april though it is rather quickly diminishing clearing and chilly lows near 12F tonight...highs near 40-45 balance of week with snow on and off forecast

Well, thank you skybird, for moving your pots! I'm sure that's why there was no hail on my 4 o'clocks that are still in pots on my deck.

I've had no rain yet today, but I'm hoping those big clouds to my east will do something. I think I got a sprinkle last night , but it wasn't much.

You were lucky. They can't predict hail in a given location unless the cell is formed and heading to a given area. Unlike big summer storms we are going to get smallish cells appearing out of the foothills. This afternoon I was taking the dogs out for a walk and within 30 min a very dark cloud was forming in the direction of Morrison.

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remembered to take the camera with me today.

I got some hail here today. It wasn't too bad mostly slushy. I was home and closed both coldframes when I saw the hail starting. It seems we don't get bad hails until the weather starts seeming more summer like.

Hockey? First round.

Dan

Yeah! ICE Hockey, Dan! Duck! We all know it's coming!

My sympathies, Digit! Glad you got a picture---so you can remember your day! ;-)

While driving up I-25 last evening, we went through a section of small spitball slushy hail near Greenwood Village. I think that cell missed my front porch though.

Got just a little rain at my place Monday night into Tuesday, maybe a 1/10 of an inch. But since your talking about hail the last snow we had, maybe two or three weeks ago now had hail, yup in the snow, we could hear it on the windows.

Hoping for more wet stuff, prefer rain but anything will help.

Billie

What a grey depressing day with nothing to show for it. Hey this is Colorado not Upstate NY if it grey lets get some rain!!!!

Hearing that we get to cross our fingers for rain again this weekend 20-30 percent chance. Here's to hoping!!

Billie

I just got done with a tree planting project and the majority of the holes were dry soil. Scrambling to get a price on a watering truck for supplemental water. Sheesh.

Speaking of the H word, Red Wings sure look good.

Dan

Speaking of H words:

I was granted an habeas corpus today.

The weather was just so bad, I couldn't spend any more cultivation time out there in the wind and snow!

digitS'

Speaking of H and coldeus corpus, the Aurora Reservoir ob is fascinating this evening:

at 21.20, the gust was 9 mph.
at 21.30, the gust was 45 mph.

What the H.

No warming of the temp, so it was not a chinook. But We Who Live Near Mountains know this stuff already. Which is why my onions are guarded against extreme wind.

Dan

What the H, indeed! It was a mostly cloudy, but warm, windless, and pretty nice day here---until about three hours ago. Was sitting here peacefully, when all of a sudden it sounded like maybe I was in a tornado! Opened the door to look out, and, it wasn't rotating, but in all other ways, it was a tornado! It came up SO fast! It was blowing a little bit of "violent water" around, but no real rain! Just checked NOAA, and they get the Thornton "statistics" from the Broomfield/Rocky Mtn Metro Airport---HUH?---a/k/a Jeffco Airport! That's west of me, so it's windier, but they're showing sustained winds of 43 MPH, with gusts up to SIXTY MPH! I'm guessing mine here are at least 50 MPH! Hope they put hurricane hooks in this house when they built it! Hmmmm! No ocean! No hurricanes! Maybe no hurricane hooks!!! Tornado hooks---maybe???

I got a little less than 2/10" of precip over night---but I suspect that's all blown to Kansas by now!

The next few days are showing chance/chance/chance of precip! I'll be hoping! Wonder if anybody is going out to Red Rocks for the Easter Sunrise Program! Brrrrr!

Skybird

I dread the hail! I was worried the other day that it was hailing the raindrops were so big and loud. Yesterday morning it rained here (Wheat Ridge), then later the day warmed up beautifully. The wind last night though threatened to blow the house away! I took my tomato plants in for the night, cold hardy stuff stayed out. I also grow brugmansias (the other forum I love) and when it hails those big leaves just get shredded. Not looking forward to that season at all!

Mesowest is the reference of choice for surface observations, albeit most are automated (one of the reasons I didn't go into weather as a career in the 80s).

Dan

Is there anything that can used to protect plants from hail? Assuming one was near their garden before it started I was thinking maybe about some moving pads such as these linked below.

Here is a link that might be useful: moving pads

how about a really big umbrella?

Have not had any luck with any experiments yet. Buckets work great as long as the plants are small and the wind isn't blowing. Fabric seems to soak up too much water and crushes unless you have a really sturdy frame for it and plastic rips, at least here between the wind and hail it does.

billie

I don't remember who it was or when it was, but sometime somebody around here was describing a frame covered on top with 1/4" hardware cloth as being pretty effective against the hail. I remember because I was thinking about that as a possibility at one time---but, in reality, I'm just never going to get around to doing it. Maybe whoever suggested that will see this and have more info.

Totally agree with Billie! Any kind of fabric would soak up the water and smash everything--unless there was a sturdy frame to support it---and if you were gonna do that, you might as well use the hardware cloth on top!

My solution, as long as the plants are small enough, is using big pots (nursery size - 2-25 gallon) inverted over the plants--same thing I use for late frosts/freezes. In wind I weight them down with bricks or rocks. Buckets or gallon jugs with the bottom cut out work too for small plants. I don't think many people out here have many clay pots, but big clay pots work very well too--and they don't need to be weighted down in the wind! (When I was a kid it was my job to put the clay pots over the veggie starts every nite, and kick them over again in the morning! Not for hail, but they were the labor intensive 50's version of WOW's!)

Dan, I check out Mesowest every time you post a link, and I'm afraid that site is just too complicated for my Enfeebled Olde Brain! TOO much info for a non-meteoroligist type person! I always go back to NOAA where I can (so easily) click on the map to go wherever I want and have immediately available the current conditions, predictions, and loopable radar. It's so easy for somebody who doesn't really know anything! ;-) And, like you say, it's almost all automated anyway!

Sunny and 63 so far today--but way windy again! Gonna try to get something done in the yard again today, but not sure what. The veggie garden is still a little too wet to turn anymore of that over.

Time to go out! If I don't show back up here, send out a search party to look for me in Kansas!

Skybird

Greg, my hoops have fabric connected on one end and makes a quick cover if I'm home and see the cloud coming.

Dan

Posted by skybird
I don't remember who it was or when it was, but sometime somebody around here was describing a frame covered on top with 1/4" hardware cloth as being pretty effective against the hail.

That was PlantLadyCO

d'S'

Here is a link that might be useful: Avoiding Hail Damage

Wow! Very good, Digit! I didn't have any idea where to find that one!

Thanks,
Skybird

Got about .25 inch of rain yesterday/last night. Would have liked more, but a heck of a good start. Maybe the pasture will start turning green and I turn the horses out again.
Way too much wind over the weekend (nothing new). Hoping it will blow out soon, or did all the earthquakes in Japan move the Earth's axis enough that we are getting Wyoming's wind?
If the wind would stop, I might get something done outside.

Billie

I was at Home Depot earlier today and thought I would pick up some of the Homer 5 gallon buckets to use for hail protection. I've been looking around behind some restaurants (aka dumpster diving) and checking craigslist for buckets but no success.

So I got home from work and my computer was playing Bob Dylan's Shelter from the Storm and within a minute it started hailing fairly hard. Out I went and closed both coldframes and started covering up what I could with the dozen buckets. The hail petered out in a few minutes but I was glad for the Homer buckets.

The old weatherman just to your east, Greg, was watching the radar & just lost a couple leaves around the yard, peppers & toms generally fine. Looks like Brighton-Thornton area may have a different tale...

Dan

You betcha, Dan! I'll be back later!

Skybird

The Orange HD buckets are perfect hail prevention. For the past 5 days I have been at our home in Phoenix working in the garden. Temps much better than August!!! No higher than 95 and today less than 80 with wind and a little shower action. Today I planted a 15 gallon (yes a big hole considering the soil is like concrete if not irrigated) Mexican Palm to replace a ???? palm that got zapped during the very hard frosts they had here this year.... Our other Mexican was un scathed so we got another one.

gjcore - try the bakery at the local grocery store. They get everything in the darn things and always have a stack of them at around 5 or 6 am. you have to be early though otherwise they toss them!! Also cat litter comes in some pretty handy 5 gallon ish buckets. Have any friends that have cats?

Billie

So this is how MY day went!!!

I had to pick up some name badges for the swap, so a little after 1:00 I headed out to the local Walmart! The sky was getting dark and it was just starting to rain, so I thought I better hurry. Got to the WM about 5 minutes later and there were 4 guys standing in the driving lane right in front of the store kind of looking around! Huh? I parked and headed in, and was greeted by an employee who told me to go to the "middle of the store!" Huh? She said there was a tornado warning, and that everyone was supposed to stay in the middle of the store! I said/responded/stated that in that type of a building, the middle of the store seemed like the absolutely worst place to be---if the roof was ripped off! Shouldn't we be going into a back room or a lunch room or a bathroom area---where there'd be at least a little extra "wall support!" She said that that's what they "had been told to do!" The group of people, mostly employees, was just a little ways in front of me, so I walked over there and found one guy showing everybody--on his cell--the "tornado!" Huh? I looked and really couldn't see anything that looked like a tornado to me! There MIGHT have been a funnel cloud dropping out of the clouds, but I couldn't even see that on his tiny cell screen! I had been watching the clouds on the way over, wondering how bad the rain was gonna get, and I hadn't even seen any rotation. I asked WHERE it was, and nobody seemed to know! Huh? I asked again, and somebody pointed in the directions of my house and said, over there! Huh? I said, I just came from 128th and Colorado Blvd. and there was nothing over there! (The WM is at 128th and Quebec--just a couple miles!) A woman next to me said she just came from 112th and Colorado Blvd., and there was nothing there! Except for the "tornado picture" on the teeny little screen, nobody knew anything, so I wandered off a little bit and sat down on a shelf! Lookin' around me! Pots & pans! THIS is gonna get interesting when the roof gets ripped off!!! I'm lookin' some more and notice that the linen section is real close, and I'm thinkin' that if things start flying, I'm heading for a pile of bath towels!!! I sat there for several more minutes and then noticed a couple customers roaming around past me, out of the Safety Zone! I got up and pretended I was looking at the pots and pans and started slowly "migrating" away from the "safe area," hoping to see if I could find the name badges! An employee "suggested" that I return to the "middle of the store--it shouldn't me much more than another 10 minutes!" I stood there for a couple minutes thinking: This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done, and walked back to the front door to leave---determined to do more damage than a tornado to anybody who told me I couldn't leave! Nobody tried to stop me, and I headed back to my car--passing a couple employees that were still standing in front of the store looking at the sky!

Light rain! I headed west down 128th toward Sheridan and the Sprouts, and a couple miles down the rain got heavier and then there was a little bit of small hail! By the time I got to I25 there was a couple inches of small hail on the road---and my Traction Control engaged! It--HAIL--was coming down pretty hard by then, but it was lighter west of me, so I kept going! Ice on the windshield! Windshield suddenly completely fogged up! Defroster on hot and full blast! Now it feels like I'm in hot and humid Illinois! Say it ain't so! I kept going, slowly, and drove back out of it a couple miles further west! Got to Sprouts and ran in thru the rain. Finished shopping and ran back out thru the rain.

There's a Walmart right across from the Sprouts---and I'm not going back to the one where they make you huddle together in the "middle of the store"-- so I head over to this one! Run in thru the rain--and don't have a clue what's where in this one, so I spend 10 minutes looking! Finally find the name badges--and a box of good looking strawberries--and run back out thru the rain!

I usually avoid 120th at all costs (that's where the Sprouts and WM are!), but I was "planning" to stop at the King Soopers near me on the way home, and that's on 120th, so I decided to just go straight down 120th back home! The closer I got to I25, the harder it was raining--with just a little bit of hail! By about a half mile before I25, traffic was mostly stopped! Went by somebody who either skidded out or had tried to make a turn in front of somebody and didn't make it. Only one cop on the scene at that point! A few blocks further it was a parking lot! By now there's LOTS of hail on the road! Eventually got far enough to see that one of the lights was flashing red! This is like the last intersection before I25---so picture it having a stop sign there---MANY lanes wide with left turn lanes all over the place---and people trying to make last minute lane changes to get onto I25! Now THIS is FUN!!! My turn now! I'm goin'! And hold your breath and hope everybody else agrees with you! By the time I got right up to I25, there was AT LEAST 6-8" of hail on the road/area, and where it had been "driven up into piles" there was over a foot in a lot of places! There goes that Traction Control again! Just past I25 it was Total Insanity Squared! It looked like nobody had the foggiest idea of where they were trying to go! ENOUGH of 120th! There's a reason why I try to avoid it---even in GOOD weather! As soon as I could I headed back up to 128th to get the rest of the way home--and sections of that were TOTALLY flooded, So much water was running off and down the sidewalks into the street I could hardly believe it. All the deciduous trees had pea soup under them!

By now I'm wondering if I have any plants left at home! Swap plants, MY plants---ANY PLANTS AT ALL! A couple miles further down 128th, the depth of the hail decreased dramatically, and I started to have some hope! Pulled in the drive, and it didn't look too bad---at least not compared to what I had just come thru! Went straight thru the house into the backyard---and it's not nearly as bad as it could have been---if I lived a few miles further west! Most of my perennials have smaller leaves, and they're "laying down" (for a nap!), but I'm pretty sure they're all going to successfully stand back up---"when" the rain stops! The flowerless lamb's ear that we were talking about on another thread recently really BOUGHT IT! It'll be interesting to see what it looks like for the swap! Still has leaves! Well-ventilated leaves! After the swap I'll cut it all down and wait for some pretty, new stuff! My hostas and all the other stuff right up against the north side of the house are all fine! NOAA showed the wind coming out of the north, but from what I can tell, the hail mostly came in more from the west! My baby lettuce plants (east side of house) in the garden--only about an inch high--were plastered down into the clay, but I think that was more from heavy rain than hail. I "fluffed them" to get them unstuck from the dirt! And then there's the swap plants! I hope everybody believes me when I say that the roots are the most important part of a plant!!! Their little pots/cups were all filled up to the top with small hail! Actually, I'm surprised by how good they look! Some of them are a little bit dinged up! Like the shasta daisies have "dents" in the leaves! Yes, well!!! Any good body shop should be able to take care of that!!!!!

A couple of the things that were still quite small might be lost, but I think almost everything will be fine---just not as pretty looking as they were yesterday! All 18 flats of swap plants are now back up in the sheltering care of my covered deck! My hands were frozen solid by the time I finished, but the plants are safe---and my hands are thawed again! I moved them mostly because of the continuing rain! They've been saturated for well over a week now, and plants in pots just can't stay THAT wet for THAT long! They'll be staying on the deck until Sunday now! Hopefully I can get them moved back down onto the grass after I cut it (???) on Saturday! Hopin' it's dry enough to cut it or we're gonna be roaming around out there in a Grass Maze at the swap! Turn left! I'm over here! Ten more steps! I have the plants you want!!!

When I got home I had 1.3" of rain in the gauge! As near as I can tell, almost all of that probably "happened" in about a half an hour! It's been raining, more or less, ever since I got home! About an hour ago it was absolutely torrential again for a while! The kind of thing where gutters are totally irrelevant!

For somebody who just went out to pick up some name badges and a little bit of produce, I had quite the interesting afternoon! Wonder if the rain is really gonna last for 3 days! If it does, I guess I deserve it since I've been tempting the Precipitation Gods all winter!

It just started POURING again!

Skybird

P.S. Dan, I really like that radar you linked! I saved it!

Um, Skybird, maybe next swap just ask everyone to bring their own name tags?!?

H word is right! Got an inch of hail in Wheat Ridge yesterday, things are a bit sad around here right now. Moved my veggie plants out of the path in time thank goodness. When will it dry out enough to plant them I wonder?

All this HAIL we get in Colorado is really putting a damper on gardening. One of the few things that survived the first hail storm we had last year was a Barlow Rose Columbine...the first flower opened fully yesterday morning...now it is gone! I was so pleased with it and thought I should get out here a little later to get a good picture of it...nope didn�t get one. The good news is that almost all my plants were in covered raised beds and are all fine!!! I am scared to plant them but they are fine. The only things that have been planted were cauliflower, broccoli, broccoli rabe, brussel sprouts, several kinds of cabbage and lots of herbs. The herbs are mostly planted up against the back of the house and the hail blew in against the front of the house so they were mostly all protected. Which is a good thing because the swap stuff is nestled right in with the herbs! I need to take inventory again and post what is left. I did have some things in the house that I had propagated the night before. I am not sure how much rain we actually received (Dan I will have to use your precipitation link) because my rain gauge was on the covered front porch. It still got 1.6" of water in it after about 1 hour of rain and hail. Pretty cool watching the funnel clouds just over the arsenal. I don�t mind the funnel clouds as long as they stay funnel clouds and away from my yard! It is the hail I have a problem with. My poor tree leaves are looking pretty bad and so are all my other little plants. Most of them are from Skybird and they were just starting to look good (flowerless lambs ear well ventilated also).
Skybird you are pretty gutsy heading straight into the storm! I picked up the little girl from school and headed into the basement!!!

We usually get a cool drink and head for the garden to watch the storm go by, but not yesterday. We had it pour for most of the afternoon (no hail, happy dance). When I checked this morning grand total of 1.25", all rain. Ground so dry that there were no puddles left :( (I like puddle jumping with my truck, its amazing how far you can shoot a puddle at 70 mph)

Billie

We had an interesting phenom this morning, frozen rain. Not slush, not grapple, just tiny, tiny bits of clear ice.

More hail again today and it's heading up to the north side of the Denver metro area now. There was about 1/4 inch of hail on the ground when I got home. Looks like some damage but nothing killed that I noticed.

When I got up today I had just over 2" in the rain gauge. Just before it got dark out I was up to 2.4"! It's still raining--but pretty lightly! Never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I hope it stops soon! My yard is gonna be quicksand---or would that be quickclay---for the swap if it doesn't stop soon! No hail today!

My Interesting Day hadn't ended yet when I posted here yesterday! About 12:40 last nite it started really pouring again, and I was going to NOAA one last time before going to bed to see what radar looked like---when the power went out! I fired up three of my kerosine lamps, got ready for bed, and carried all of them up to the bedroom, planning to read a little since I couldn't watch TV, and just as I was getting it all "safely" organized to get enough light without burning the place down, the power came back on--a little past 1:30!

Interesting day ----- and night!

Skybird

We got it pretty good here and I'll have a couple sweet peppers set back several weeks as they recover as I was not home. Not as bad as the year they were stripped of all leaves by wind, though. The MIL drove thru some hail just to our north where there was about 2" on the ground.

Dan

No H here in Brighton thankfully. I have just about had enough of this cold rain though. Between Wed and Thurs we got 2 1/2 inches. and that's on top of the other 2+ inches we had already gotten! Everything is soggy and green, but I'm starting to miss the sun! The last round of transplant victims are appreciating it though. I wouldn't mind it as much if my sunroof wasn't still stuck open. It's been raining too much to even mess with it!

sigh....Should I bring a canopy to the swap?
Cat

After getting a better look this morning alot of plants got slammed yesterday. Lettuce, spinach, broccoli, basil, gojiberry, tomatoes and peppers all took quite a bit of damage :-(

I hope that we don't get a third day in a row of hail.

I have just about had enough of this cold rain though. ...Everything is soggy and green, but I'm starting to miss the sun! ...sigh....Should I bring a canopy to the swap?

Latest forecast discussion: .LONG TERM...AFTER SOME DRYING AND WARMING OVER THE WEEKEND...IT
APPEARS THAT A COOL UNSETTLED WEATHER PATTERN WILL RETURN TO THE
FORECAST AREA NEXT WEEK. THE HEMISPHERIC 5-WAVE PATTERN NOW SHOWS A
BLOCKING RIDGE OVER SOUTHWESTERN CANADA OVER A MEAN TROUGH OVER THE
SOUTHWESTERN U.S. THIS PATTERN WOULD FAVOR THE TROUGHINESS AND
UNSETTLED WEATHER DEPICTED BY THE MEDIUM RANGE MODELS. FOR MOST OF
NEXT WEEK IT LOOKS LIKE THE MAIN UPPER JET WILL BE POSITIONED TO THE
SOUTH OF COLORADO...LEADING TO COOLER TEMPERATURES ACROSS OUR
FORECAST AREA.

The bolded passage means that the pattern we are in now across the entire northern hemisphere is very stable. Such patterns often persist for a week or more - as often as not ~two weeks - this time of year.

I'll take the rain though. Not a problem.

Dan

Up to 2.7" here so far! Mostly sunny so far this morning---and I'm SO glad to see the SUN! If the forecast for Sunday holds at low 70's and sunny I won't complain---too much! I just wish it would dry out long enough for me to get the rest of my veggies planted! AND I'm also up to the point where I'm getting standing water in a couple small areas in my yard when it's raining, so I would definitely appreciate a break for a week--for both reasons. AND the SUN reason! We are very spoiled out here, and to have no sun at all for several days in a row is downright depressing!

I'm still hoping it's possible to get the grass cut today to get that out of the way, so I'm really, really, really hoping this afternoon's "scattered storms" scatter somewhere else!!!

Let me cut my grass, have the swap, and plant my veggies---and then I'll be ready for more!

Skybird

Boy I hope the rain stays away for a few days. I haven't been able to plant anything because it's rained every dang day here for the last couple of weeks. We got H only once, but it was quite a lot of it, enough that the ground was covered in white. It kept raining on top of the H and within an hour it was gone. Very, very soggy here and I am not a happy camper.

You guys!

Just a few weeks ago it was so warm, warm, warm! Hot, even! And, the lack of moisture was such an issue. You'd take rain, snow, "anything!"

So you got snow (apparently, quite a lot of it in places), rain (like crazy) and hail!

Now, it is too soggy. AND, you are talking about a "cool spring!"

You know, from a distance, it is kind of hard to keep track of what is going on in that part of Colorado, weather-wise.

Steve

You know, from a distance, it is kind of hard to keep track of what is going on in that part of Colorado, weather-wise.

Severe drought up to ~a week ago. Then we got several inches of a good, soaking rain. Fabulous.

Dan

The "cool spring" is also a bit confusing.

I'm sure that the story was of a remarkably warm winter. Then, there were temperatures in the 70's and even 80's ((while I was still hoping to see 60F, up here :o(.

I was surprised hearing talk of cold again. And now? Are you really back in sub-normal temperatures where just over half way thru the season there is some justification for talk of a "cool spring" - ??

Steve ?

It's been around low-50s tops for the past couple weeks. Supposed to warm up some this week. I saw the sun yesterday! Today it looks ready to storm again.

oh!

It's just really odd for Colorado to have rain, steady rain, day after day.

my rhubarb this morning:

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