Carol, That is just terrible about the hail....and also about too much rain. I hate hail.

Uh oh, you've had other years with too much rain and I don't want to think too hard about those because it seems like your soil was wet forever.

At least you got the plants covered and protected, and I bet the rhubarb will bounce right back with no foliage.

There's no telling how much rain you got after the rain gauge filled up. Maybe you don't even want to know. They say there is heavy rain coming to parts of OK at the end of this week. I hope it misses y'all because you already have too much. I noticed that the color-coded rainfall map on the OK Mesonet did not even capture our rain today accurately. We got 1.35" at our house and they show much less. The longer I compare real-life observation to Mesonet observations, the less consistency I see. I don't expect their rain gauge at the Meso station to match ours, but you'd think the radar-indicated rainfall would be close to reality and it is not at all some times, but right on the money other times. I think it doesn't handle fast, heavy downpours well.

There's nothing wrong with a smaller garden for fresh eating only! It still will put lots of nice meals on the table.

Dawn

Me too Bon. Usually I would have had 40 or more tomato plants in the ground by now and all of my early plants. I am trying to use up my canned food, and don't want to add anymore. I am also going to school and don't have a lot of time right now. After these 2 classes I can do everything else on line without that trip to Tulsa every week.

Dawn, you are right, I don't think I even want to know how much rain we really got. I don't usually put on my boots to go into the garden, until plants are so big that I can't see where I am putting my feet. I have waterproof shoes from Tractor Supply which I usually wear until I need boots for protection. I slipped those on this morning to go uncover my 3 tomato plants and the water went over the top of them. LOL I stepped again and started to sink. We just put those plants in the ground about 5 days ago and luckily had left a shovel near them. I grabbed the shovel and used it for a staff to keep from falling while I worked my way back out of the mud. I never plant tomato plants in a raised bed, but this year I did, and I am very glad.

I'm glad too, Carol. It may save their lives. If not, I'll just mail you CARE packages of tomatoes! I hope this isn't one of those years when your garden stays wet forever and forever.

Wow. It broke a bucket. So sorry, Carol. Glad not too many plants were damaged.

The first part of the hail was large, then it gave way to some smaller stuff which looked like mothballs on the ground. The ground is covered with leaves and twigs from the trees. I am not looking forward to heavy rain on top of this.

What area of ok was hit by hail?

bossyvossy, Many scattered areas in OK were hit by hail, but Carol's may have been the worst in this last round of storms. In this case, Carol lives in far NE OK near Grand Lake. I don't think their hail even made the news down here in southern OK.

Carol, I looked at the 7-day QPF and there's oodles of rain supposedly headed your way. I'm hoping it shifts and goes somewhere else.

Dawn

We'll be driving through your neighborhood Friday, Carol--I hope you're lucky and I hope we are, too! We're going to Des Moines to rendezvous with my son and DIL and grandkids for a fun weekend! Unless we float away before we get to Missouri. . .

Carol hate to hear about the hail. Haven't seen you around since I've been back visiting once in a while. I have several plants started this year after not planting a thing last year. Will put several plants in the ground here and also down at Leedey. I was close to putting plants in the ground last weekend. Glad I didn't as it is supposed to be 37-38 Friday and Sat nights. Hope things dry out and you have a great garden all though it will be small. Mine will be smaller also. Have already planted a lot of ground cover I'm going to let grow and then till in later. It will be everywhere I don't have plants.

Jay, you aren't around much anymore and I always wonder what you are up to. Sounds like trips to Leedey are still on the menu, so things must be going good. LOL

Dawn, I looked at that forecast also and I must say that it doesn't make me happy. Looking at plans for the ark.

Nancy, you will probably be OK. This storm wasn't very wide, but it was long from east to west and just went on forever. Radar was showing intense rotation not far from me, but they never issued a warning on it. There were lots of thunderstorm and flash flood warnings in this general area. Our granddaughter was at work about five miles from us and said they didn't get the hail. I saw two broken plastic things in my yard, and the tops of my concrete planters are badly pitted, but two glass top tables that I forgot to move survived the hail. Most years I am a big gardener, but not this year. That is a good thing because if I had started seeds in February as normal then pampered them for 8 weeks I would have been really upset.

No doubt, Carol, you would have been upset! So what are you going to school for? Are you loving it? So cool, lifelong learning!!!

And by the way, I checked weather for here, Joplin, and St. Louis, and it looks like we will be traveling in rain for the first 5-6 hours of our trip Friday! Yippee!

I never remember the glass tables either. I wonder if people in other states are as adept at reading radar images as we are? I have half a dozen shortcuts saved, not counting the mesonet.

Oh yeah. We were adept in Minnesota, which is part of tornado alley. And yep, totally forgot about my glass table--a large one, for 6, and it got smashed to bits. Twice up there we were without power for 5-6 days with trees down everywhere. First time was worse than the 2nd. I was taking cold baths to clean up for work, and only had a couple ice chests for my fridge food. Second time, I was living in a darling little mother's garden level apt with my kids. . . MY part of the house was totally flooded, so we had to move everything out and re-do the floor, and fumigate and bleach. . .but my son was a contractor and so at least had several generators, so we DID have refrigeration. . . lol. They built that cute little apartment for me, and I lived there four years very happily (until I made a trip to Buffalo Wy and met GDW again and got married 3 months later), except for when the apartment got flooded--THREE times in four years!!!!! I was not a happy camper. I finally told the kids the last time, four strikes and I'm OUTTA here. Still, good that I am not a person who has a lotta stuff. Could have been worse. And each time, as crazy maddening as it was, still was kinda funny. Each time I got SOME compensation--reduced rent payments, a lot of apologies, free dinners. . .

Carol for the last 4 years I've made the trip over 40 times each year. So know the highways very well. Hopefully within the next 18 months I won't have to make it as often. Will likely either move that way or at least spend most of my time down there. It seems I never have enough time at either place now. She has good ground for a garden down there and raising a small one every year. Going to take her some of the tomato plants I started this year. She will get to try some different ones.

Nancy, I hope y'all have a safe trip and enjoy your time in Des Moines. I hate long trips in the rain.

Carol, The forecast numbers have changed a bit but it still looks like heavy rain is in the cards for y'all. Let's hope it at least falls as all rain and no hail.

Amy, I think it depends on the person, but I have noticed that everyone I know has radar and weather sites and alerts on their cell phones now and folks seem more weather-conscious now than ever before. Nowadays, we have so much weather info at our fingertips that is is almost mind-boggling at times. I think that's a good thing. Even if Tim and I were totally clueless about approaching bad weather, our friends in Texas and in other parts of OK would be calling, texting, sending us radar loops, etc. and asking "are y'all watching this weather" or "are y'all in the cellar"? I don't know if the increased awareness is because social media puts more weather info right in our hands or what. Maybe it is just that after seeing Moore, Joplin and Tuscaloosa hit by huge, wicked tornadoes the last few years, we've all become much more watchful than we were before.

The media helps too. Back in May 2013, when Moore got hit by the EF-5 on May 20th, Tim, Chris and I were at home. I had the TV on The Weather Channel and had NEWS 9 on my laptop. We were watching storm chaser and news media video live as the tornado was occurring. To me, that was the most horrifying thing---to see the dark skies and to hear the TV mets broadcasting the warnings and urging folks to take shelter immediately, and to hear the chasers describing what they were seeing in real time. You know, you're seeing that and listening to it and just hoping and praying that folks have places to shelter and that they are in their sheltering places. I remember that early on at least one person on TV was saying the tornado was headed right for some schools and it was terrifying to even hear those words. I know that I cannot even imagine how it felt to be the folks in those schools or the parents and loved ones of the folks in the schools. To watch something like that unfold right there in real timeon TV, your computer or even the tiny screen of a cell phone is just so much worse than hearing about it afterward---it makes it so very real to you. I suppose that is good for all of us though---because I don't know how anyone who sees something like that can be flippant and ignore Tornado Watches and Tornado Warnings ever again. Once you see the power of those storms and the aftermath of what they do, I think you become a confirmed radar-watcher if you weren't one already.

We are so lucky to have so many ways to get weather information. One of our nearest neighbors was telling us a story once about how they all were out working in the farm fields and looked up and saw an approaching tornado. That's not much warning, is it? They all ran like mad for their storm cellar and the youngest son, who was farthest away from the house, just barely made it. They all were standing at the cellar door watching him run towards them as the funnel cloud approached, yelling and urging him to hurry, hurry, hurry. He was around 13 years old then, and is in his 80s now. I am grateful we have more advanced warning than that nowadays.

Dagnabbit! Speaking of rain, the rain at this moment was not in my plans! No no. I needed to get some yard stuff done before we leave tomorrow. Means I won't get back to it until Monday, if it's not raining Monday. Oh well. . . .sure is green. Green's my favorite color, so green is good.

Green is good, and some years there's not enough rain, so when it does show up, we just have to be grateful and work our way around it....even when it leaves us sitting inside, tapping our fingers and waiting for the rain to stop. There's been so many years when I have been irritated with all the heavy rainfall in April and May, only to feel increasingly desperate when the rain doesn't fall in June, July and August. It's too bad we cannot get the rain to level out and fall at a nice rate of, let's say, one inch per week every week.