Oh the WEATHER!!

The last two weeks have been quite traumatic on the weather front!! First, we had a massive hail storm a few weeks back, with hail as big as a golf ball:

Brian, holding the hail

When this hail was coming down, we were just amazed. It was like we were sitting inside of a tin can--that's how loud it was! Luckily, the flower garden, at this point, was not heading out, so we had minimal flower/vegetable damage. We did, however, have significant car damage, which was definitely an unpleasant surprise...

Then, last night at about 7:00 p.m. the sky began to turn black and swirly. At first, I told Brian that I thought we'd be fine if we stayed upstairs and finished dinner, but, within minutes, the sky became even more ominous and a gigantic wall cloud sat virtually on top of our house. That's when the sirens began to wail.

We quickly trucked it to the bottom level of the house, Lily in tow. She was not very happy about being trapped in a small interior room and kept trying to climb back up the stairs. Within minutes, the hail started. This time, it pelted the north side of our home, actually cracking a window in Lily's bedroom. Lily became concerned at the loud noise at this point--and I don't blame her. The hail was hitting the basement windows so hard I was honestly concerned that it would shatter.

We had the storm radio on throughout the storm. The weatherman reported that there were multiple tornadoes on the ground throughout the Scottsbluff area--although, luckily for us, it seemed to avoid our neighborhood.

That is not to say there was no damage...our yard was an absolute wreck. Many of our flowers are bent and broken from the hail and intense winds. The houses across from us suffered multiple window breaks and will most likely need roof repairs. My car, yet again, got dented. Reports from the entire town were even worse: a trailer park is being condemned after many of the trailers were destroyed, the roof of  a local car lot blew off, and several power lines were down.

Here is a video from a storm chaser that I got off of YouTube (it does have the camera strap blocking the view in a part of it)--I believe it is just between Scottsbluff and Minatare on Highway 26 (or I'm guessing from the landmarks)--which is just miles from our house: