Oh, hail…

Today was mostly a day to relax after a busy week and weekend, and also to take care of a few chores. One of those was going to the grocery store, and on the way back it sleeted. I was concerned, and trapped in my car for awhile.

When I arrived at the supermarket, there were dark clouds in the sky, and I thought that there might be a bad rainstorm—but the clouds didn’t look “right”, since they were kind of mottled. I realised later that they were more like “snow clouds”, but since I seldom see them in Auckland, I didn’t recognise them right away.

It was raining when I left the grocery store: Not heavily, but big, fat drops that kinda hurt when they hit my head. I loaded the car and returned the trolley as fast as I could.

It rained most of the way home, then, as I started down our street, it got weird. “That’s hail,” I thought to myself. It got heavier. Then heavier, and heavier again. I even popped on my sunnies in case the glass broke, not that it was likely.

By the time I reached our drive, it was kind of a slushy precipitation, and there was what we used to call “accumulation” when I lived in the Midwest of the USA: White stuff building up on my windscreen wipers.

I pulled up in front of our garage, and parked. I sat there: It was still hailing/sleeting/slushing too hard. Nigel, who happened to be home, opened the garage door for me and I ran inside. It hurt hitting my head, far more than before. I got my gardening hat and went back out to get the groceries, closing the boot between trips.

Once back in the house, I looked out at the deck, which was covered in the slushy mess. The photo above is an example, with distinctly clear areas that were under trees. If that particular area of the deck looks kind of familiar, it was in my YouTube video back in June.

So, the weather today was kind of weird. It’s only the second or third time I can remember weather like that happening since we moved to this house nine years ago. And, it didn’t last long: It was all melted within half an hour.

We had a blot of lightening within a couple kilometres of our house, followed by loud thunder that echoed for several seconds. There were apparently funnel clouds in nearby Glenfield.

And then it was all over—which is a description of winter in Auckland, actually. Which, by the way, ends three weeks from today; not soon enough.