I have never seen a storm like this in my life.

Golf-ball sized hail and a huge amount of water at the same time, lasting ~15 minutes.

It was pretty much deafening, and then it got louder.

I have no idea what it's going to look like when things die down.  I'd imagine that anyone with plants outside has some work ahead of them, at the least.  No concept of what it must have been like to be caught on a bike in this . . .

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Permalink Reply by Megan S. on June 30, 2011 at 5:17pm
My friend and I were biking up Damen from Wicker Park to Ravenswood, attempting to follow a break in the storm that we saw. It worked alright for a while, we managed to avoid rain but felt like moving lightning rods. We ended up stranded only 4 blocks from my apartment, taking cover under a huge pine tree. We were both really glad to have our helmets on when the hale started to come down...
Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on June 30, 2011 at 6:44pm
Went on the point 83 ride and we were just about to leave Ethyl's and the hail started coming down. My ride home was surreal never saw so many leaves, branches down. Pulverized.
Permalink Reply by Shay on July 1, 2011 at 1:59am

All of the screens on my south-facing windows have big holes torn in them from the hail.  

 

My container garden looks bedraggled and beaten, but I think the tomato plants and lettuce will be ok.  My cucumber seedling (which was spindly to begin with) was torn to pieces.  No cucumbers in my garden this year.

Permalink Reply by Carly on July 1, 2011 at 2:31am
Thats about the biggest one I got up in lincoln square.  

Serge Lubomudrov said:

One had to wear a helmet to go outside:

Permalink Reply by Joel on July 1, 2011 at 2:54am
I was watching as the storm danced around River North. You can see the front in the picture, along with some of the first lightning.
Permalink Reply by Duppie on July 1, 2011 at 3:20am

I think we got lucky up here in A'ville.

I watched it from my (covered) porch steps. The lightning strikes were quite a spectacle. Heavy rain flooded our garden with the roof run-off, as it is designed to do. Our French drain holds up very well to this type of storms. I did not see any hail, but we got easily 1+ inch of rain in 15 minutes.

 

This morning there appears to be very little damage to our plants. A little leaf damage to the pole beans and the hostas, but that is about it.

Permalink Reply by Adam "Cezar" Jenkins on July 1, 2011 at 3:22am
Thankfully it didn't hit the far south.
Permalink Reply by Leah Jone on July 1, 2011 at 3:33am

I was riding up Halsted when the lighting started with a few friends. I kept saying, "I can get to Addison and I'll get on the train."

 

Wrong.

 

At Diversy we almost took shelter in the Walgreen's, because the lightning was so bad. Instead we went up to Wellington to a friends house and got in just when the hail started. 45 minutes later, I was back on the road, but I'd rather not ride in lightning like that again.

Permalink Reply by in it to win it 8.0 mi on July 1, 2011 at 3:41am

Damage assessment this AM.  Not bad at all.  All herbs and tomato plants survived.

Yay!

in it to win it said:

Ugh. My poor plants...
Permalink Reply by Stephanie on July 1, 2011 at 3:43am
My tomato plants toughed it out admirably, lost the top of one of the eight, but the other seven seemed mainly unscathed this morning- even the few first blossoms on them were intact. I got lucky!
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on July 1, 2011 at 7:08am

I can tell you what it felt like to be out on a bike in that.  It hurt like hell.  I'd gone to a neighborhood music venue earlier, when there was no rain in the forecast.  About 9:00, the lights went out.  I could see torrential rain through the front door.  The band played a while longer by emergency lighting and candles - unplugged, of course.  At 9:30, the emergency lighting was fading and the rain had stopped.  I unlocked the bike quickly and started to ride for home (1.5 miles away).  There were a few drops of rain, but it wasn't heavy - yet.

I'd gone half a mile and was up on the ridge by the time the rain really cut loose.  A block later, the hail started.  First I heard it start to hammer on the gutters and rooftops.  Then it started hitting my helmet and the rest of me.  Owwww!!!!!  Non-stop stinging all over.  It was pea-sized then and quickly increased to grape-sized, stinging more.  I'd worked up a good sweat earlier and the rain was washing that dried sweat into my eyes.  It was hard to see between the stinging from sweat, heaviness of the rain, leaves pelting down and hail.  All the big trees offered a little bit of protection from the hail, but I didn't exactly want to stand around under one, because I've seen too many taken down by high winds lately.  Short of ringing a stranger's doorbell and asking to come in, there was nowhere good to take shelter.

I was grateful that there was hardly any traffic.  Once the hail and blinding rain started, I saw only 3 cars that were moving or appeared to be occupied.  I just kept moving.  When I was a block from home, a car stopped and let me pass through the intersection - and she didn't have a stop sign.  I rolled up onto the sidewalk and stopped by our gate.  She pulled up and rolled down her window, asking if I needed a ride.  I thanked her for stopping, but said that I was home. That was the longest mile I've ever ridden.

I waded through the mud in our still-under-construction back yard and was relieved to get inside.  At that point, the hail was almost the size of golf balls.  Looks like the only casualty of the trip might be my helmet-mounted blinkie headlight.  My cell phone survived - just enough protection from my handlebar bag.  All things considered, I feel pretty lucky.

Our poor sycamore tree had lots of small leaves stripped off - 2nd round of leaves on some branches after earlier stress from weather extremes.  In the veggie bed, the oregano had no damage.  Tomatoes had some damage, but they look like they'll live.  Pole beans had a lot of shredded leaves.  Bush beans were fine.  I had some tiny seedlings just starting - no idea if they'll survive.  This was my 3rd try on some species, after earlier seedlings were wiped out by the relentless rain in May and early June.  Unless I find some good replacement plants this weekend, I'm just giving up on whatever species got killed off by this storm.

We had a moderate number of leaves and small branches down.  I took a short ride around the neighborhood.  Where there were a lot of honey locust trees, the streets are literally carpeted with leaves.  Any really catastrophic tree damage was mostly to large maple trees.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on July 1, 2011 at 7:37am
We've seen this sycamore go through similar stress in the last few years and bounce back nicely.  It's still sad to see so many leaves torn off a tree in one day.  There are a lot of sycamores within a mile of us, and I've watched the same cycle with them.

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