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Flickr user Beck Exposed, a.k.a. Capitol Hill resident Sarah Becker, sent us this photo of the hail that pummeled her front stoop for about five minutes around 11:30 a.m. Anybody else spot some hail? These thunderstorms the last couple of days have been pretty impressive, if not a little bit freaky. How can we have hail when it's 50 degrees out?
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We got hail very briefly in Arlington, as well.
It doesn't have to be cold on the ground for hail to form, it all depends on updrafts in the storm clouds and the temperature of the upper part of the cloud. Water droplets mix with dust and dirt being carried in the cloud then updrafts push the water into the super cold upper part of the cloud where it freezes. The particle then falls back through the cloud where it can be pick up by updrafts again and the cycle repeats. Eventually it falls to earth.
sommer: you can have hail when it's 90 degrees out. ask anyone in the commentariat who grew up or lived in the midwest and has been through a strong summer thunderstorm.
It hailed this morning in Columbia Heights for a couple of minutes, around 8:30.
It hailed in Columbia Heights this morning for a couple of minutes around 8:30.
Ack, double post FAIL.
I sit in the top floor of a building near McPherson Square. My coworkers and I saw hail on our skylights that lasted a few minutes.
We had some in Takoma Park around 8:45 this morning. It went on for a few minutes.
Some hail passed through Alexandria around Noon. Bizarre. I'm teleworking in my basement & thought some squirrels were chucking gravel at the windows for a minute.
It's always hailing in Columbia Heights.
Rocks, that is.
There was hail in Chinatown too. If only for a minute or two. Roughly the size of a marble or so.
Hail falls from a severe thunderstorm, while sleet is your wintertime frozen raindrop precip.
Oh, yeah -- five minutes of hail downtown near Freedom Plaza, too.
Some thought they were crack rocks and smoked them. Now they are in hail.
"How can we have hail when it's 50 degrees out? "
Oh, Summer. It's not 50 degrees way, way up in the thunderstorm clouds. It's really cold up there. So cold, in fact, that ice can form when the supercooled air freezes the water in the clouds. Since that ice is heavier than air, it falls down to the ground.
Pea-sized hail in Brookland at 8:15ish as well. And no, it's not a sign of the coming climate apocalypse. It's a sign of early summer thunderstorms in the mid-Atlantic. Tha's all.
Wow - there are a lot weather geeks that read this blog.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" "We are the Weathermen"
Hail is Angel Eyeballs!
I didn't see any today from my windowless office, but I definitely got hit by a few hail balls (?) on my after-work run along the river yesterday. Not my best timing.... (and I think I killed my ipod shuffle... boo)
It was hailing on my way to class today on Rock Creek Parkway, around 8:30 am.
It was hailing on my way to class today on Rock Creek Parkway, around 8:30 am.
Yep, hail in Alexandria earlier for the second day in a row. Yesterday's was around 6:30 p.m. when I was trying to get out the door to go partake of the Ben and Jerry's goodness gratis.
Live around here for 25+ years and you'll probably see quite a bit of hail, most of it in the summertime.
Hail is only formed by cumulo nimbus-type clouds (i.e. thunderclouds), which generally only appear during the warmer half of the year. That is, the odds of seeing hail when it is cold out are close to nil.