Determination!

Saturday I was determined to "chase" something.  What that turned out to be was heavy rain showers!  The morning started off with a nice little cell to the south and west of me.  The cell had a 0.5" hail marker on it, and I figured I could intercept it if I drove about 5 miles to the south.  I made it down to a school and pulled into the parking lot to wait.  This storm was moving 8kts.  Waiting for it was like waiting for paint to dry, but, when it finally arrived, I was welcomed by serious heavy rain and no hail or thunder.  I went to at least try to film how hard it was raining, and I realized I forgot the batteries in my video camera. I waited about 5 minutes and headed back home, knowing more storms would be firing later on.

I had a choice.. Storms were firing to the north and to the south.  I went after the storms with the largest hail, since these were primarily heavy rain and hail producers.  So, south we went.  That was wrong... Even though the storms we went after had 0.5" hail markers and higher, storms to the north of us ended up producing golf ball sized hail.  I don't necessarily want hail dents in my car, but I really love hail.  Plus, hail dents give your car character, right?  I have only seen golf ball sized hail 1 time, and that was when I was about 8 years old.  I've seen much smaller hailstones, but only a few times.  So, we made it to Dalton, realized there really wasn't too much else to see, and stopped to eat Mexican food before heading home.  I did see some minor street flooding in Dalton.  These storms were training, and flash flood warnings were issued for many counties in our area.

We made it home, and I decided to turn off the radar and my weather watching.  I heard some thunder and then the beautiful "ping ping" sound I had been waiting for all day!  I should've saved my gas money!!  Pea sized hail was falling!  Here's my video...  I'm so excited, but even more exciting to me is hearing the excitement in Stacey's voice!  Muahaha!!!  He was a trooper!  He drove me through the heavy blinding rain to see hail that didn't exist!  Thank you, Stacey!  :)