On Wednesday evening, all hail broke loose in Boerne, Texas. For a brief time, we had a stunning hail storm, complete with deafening thunder and blinding lightning. The photo below shows the result. No, this is not snow in winter. It’s a collection of one-inch sized hail in 80 degree weather.

Now I realize that some of my readers will not be impressed with this. I know that parts of the country get softball-sized hail. But, in all of days in Southern California, I probably experienced no more than ten hail storms, and the hailstones never got bigger than peas.
But even my unimpressed readers might be interested in another piece of this story. As I was driving home from work, where it was not hailing, I talked with my son at home. He told me of the large hailstones at were falling. So I asked him to run out and get me a couple, putting them in the freezer so I could see them. In the photo below you see some of the hail with a nickel.

Nathan, always the obedient son :), did as I had said. He grabbed an umbrella and ran outside to grab some hail. As he did, all of a sudden saw a flash of light and heard a stunning crack of thunder. Then he felt a huge electric shock pass through his body. He dropped the umbrella and ran inside. Nathan felt okay, except for his pinky on his right hand. He had been holding the umbrella in this hand and his little finger was touching the metal of the umbrella. Nathan had been struck by lightning (or perhaps “splashed” by a bolt that hit nearby). The good news is that Nathan is fine . . . well, at least he’s still the same as he was before :). In the future, we won’t be carrying around umbrellas in the middle of a hailstorm!