Well...I don't know; I'm at work at Baptist. Sadly, I watched the radar put a big, black spot that developed a WHITE core...right over my house. I'm afraid that my garden (and Lisa's, too) may be history. I won't get to go home for 3 hours, but my folks are going to head that way to make sure my windows aren't broken out.
Reports are of softball-sized hail in west OKC and then it ranged down from there...I'm sick and I don't even know how things really are yet.
I tried to call my next-door neighbor and Lisa (who lives a few blocks away)...no answer. I'll report more when I hear.

Sharon

We are fine, the garden is too. The only thing it did was break one flower scape on my garlic. We only got golf ball hail, fortunately. FIL got his fancy grill smashed up at 164th & MacArthur.

The bulk of the worst hail went south of us. It sounds like tremendous damage has occurred mainly due to baseball (and larger) size hail. It's been reported that there were 7 car crashes and several 911 calls with what is being described as "traumatic injuries" due to broken glass. Northbound Broadway Ext. is down to one lane due to flooding. Watching the aerial views broadcast on the local news, several neighborhoods look as if they are covered in snow with the huge amount of hailstones visible. My son is on his way to pick up a friend who works near Penn Square Mall - her car suffered so much damage that it is undriveable.

I feel very bad for those who suffered damage from Monday's tornado that have now been hit again.

I haven't really gone out and checked on anything, but I watched it out my dining room bay window and the worst I saw was around large marble sized hail. I'm in Warr Acres, two blocks east of MacArthur and four blocks north of 63rd. I would imagine that Andria (mrsfrodo) got pretty much the same as I did, some hail and lots of driving rain for a few minutes.

Debra

Word from my folks is that I have no broken windows, I definitely need a new roof, my dog survived, the power is out, but my garden is "rumpled" according to my dad!! He thinks it will bounce back just fine...I'll take a look when I get home to truly assess it...makes me wonder if my roof (OLD roof, though) died how the tender vegetation could survive, but we shall see...!
I am so thankful I am at work and my car is parked in the parking garage...my next-door neighbor to the west had his cute little car pounded :(

Sharon

I was at the Belle Isle library... got my car covered in leaves, and my windshield broken.

An hour later on the way home I found cars left and right along I-235 to Edmond with broken windshields.

What a mess.

Moni

We had sustained golf ball to baseball size hail. Never heard anything like it before. Just one broken window so far; garden in pretty bad shape. Don't know if the peas will pull out or not, lots of breakage and bruising. Tomatos okay, most seedlings damaged, lots of new plants damaged; fennel badly damaged as well as Hops vine; Monarda badly damaged and False Nettle; many hibiscus stems completely broken off; milkweed stems broken; Verbena bonariensis toppled over. Lots of tree leaves litter the yard and garden, making it look like a continuous sea of green from North to South. Most things will eventually grow back, but I am in for a bit of a setback.

My neighbor's antique cars fared better than his new ones. He has roof damage, and I am sure I probably have some and will have to have it looked at.

Haven't been to the backyard yet to see what is happening there.

Glad everybody is safe.

Susan

No storms and no hail here so far, but I wanted you all to know I've been watching the radar and warnings and hoping all of you would escape with no damage or at least only minor damage. I feel for anyone hit by these storms, and especially for those who sustained damage on Monday only to get hit again today. That sort of double whammy is unimaginable.

Susan, I am sorry your damage has been so severe. We were hit by baseball to softball-sized hail in Texas once, and the damage can be indescribable. At least it is relatively early in the season, so any damaged plants will have a lot of time to recover and regrow.

I hope all the other OKC-area folks who haven't checked in yet are OK.

Y'all watch the skies and the radar. More storms could form....for most of you the Severe Thunderstorm Watch lasts until 9 p.m.

Dawn

Roof will be evaluated tomorrow; all windows intact. Four hours afterward, there were still small piles of hail, as well as the remains of what were at least golf ball sized hailstones. Leaves everywhere! Thankfully, no major limbs; just deadwood that needed to drop anyway. My little garden is ok...I lost all of the tomatoes that had set, but I think the plants will be ok. Bush beans look like they suffered the most, but again...the plants will be ok - just hope they decide to bud out again. I think I lost a couple of the pole beans that had just come up...those can be replanted. Other than that, the hanging baskets and pots of flowers are in strategically-located areas that were sheltered, either by my porch or by tree cover.

Lisa...how are you? I got home around 8, so no chance to get over your way...let us know.

For all who are suffering, I am so, so sorry!

Sharon

oh wow....Sharon...thank goodness you only had those set-backs. Susan - I'm REALLY sad about yours too. I know that you grow so much for our butterfly friends, but maybe the weather will turn in your favor in the next few weeks.

So glad that most of you escaped the major damage...except Moni. DANG IT! Hope your insurance company isn't a pain about the windshield. My youngest daughter had hers busted out while she was driving the grandson home on Monday. It was baseball size. She called me immediately while she was driving and I'm here to tell ya - the panic in her voice just did me IN! She was soooo scared. Thankfully, she made it home to her garage without mishap (I stay on the phone with her). She used All Star Glass out of Bethany and they were there on time and fast. The cost was $165 and they came to her house to do it. (this Mom knows cuz well....that's what Mom's do. They're great guys!)

Hope we hear from Lisa soon....I'm just sick about her flowers.....thankful the rest of you are okay.

Paula

Wow, guys, glad to hear none of you were injured anyway. I know it's "just" hail but it can put a ding in your noggin, too.

We got mostly quarter-sized hail here but also had some golfball size for a short bit. Hubby and a couple of the kids were outside doing something and yelped "Ow! Ow! Ow!" all the way inside. LOL

Diane

Sorry to be so late checking in..I'm good. I was home during the storm. It was pretty wicked. I think the worst hail I saw was maybe golf ball size hail, but most of it was probably marble to pea size.

I don't have any major damage, but I imagine the roof will need to be checked.

The garden sustained a little bit of damage, the red hot poker lost both blooms :( The tomatoes all appear intact. Yay!!!

Susan, I am so sorry about your garden. Is there anything I can do to help?

Moni, oh, sorry. I hope the glass place can get you in quickly. Was it the Mini?

Thinking of all of you and hoping all is ok. There is so much I miss about Ok but worrying about devasting storms is not one. I still worry, as several of my horses live in Gordonville, TX. I do hope to return to the area soon so that I can be a real, card carrying OK gardener.
Today I'm worrying about my garden. The only overwatered tomatoes in AZ dying of root rot. I hate flood irrigation!

Tracy,

I hope you get to return to OK soon, even though the weather can be nerve-wracking. Flood irrigation must be very hard to deal with and I cannot imagine the frustration of having to deal with overwatered tomatoes in Arizona of all places.

Last year, our garden struggled after 12.89" of rain fell in one day last April. Because significantly higher ground sits to our garden's direct south (about 25 or 30' away), we had water seeping underground from that higher ground for almost two months. I had most of the garden planted, but in order to get the rest planted, I mounded up soil above the regular soil surface in the raised beds. Then, I worried more heavy rain would wash away the mounds. So, Tim and I went to Lowe's searching for something to hold my mounds in place. I found round cardboard tubing normally used as a form for pouring concrete piers. I think it was 3' or 4' tall and about 10 or 12" across. Tim cut those tubes into sections about 8" tall and I sat those around my mounds of soil. Then I planted my final tomato and pepper plants right into those cardboard tubes. By the time the plant roots grew all the way down through the soil in the tube and were reaching the normal soil in the raised beds, the soil was comparatively dry. Even though planted very late, those tomatoes and peppers produced at the same time as the earlier plants that suffered waterlogging and root damage. I never thought I'd have to resort to mini 'raised beds' on top of 'raised beds' but it worked! This year, we planted the two lavender plants in our granddaughter's "Peter Rabbit Garden" in those tubes so they'd sit higher than her raised beds because those raised beds have improved clay that doesn't drain as well as I'd like. They are doing just fine too, despite 4" of rain in the last week. It is amazing the lengths I'll go to in order to be able to grow what I want to grow where I want to grow it. lol

I hope the horses at Gordonville are OK. Parts of Texas have had wicked weather too in the last week or two.

Everyone, remember that there's a chance of severe weather most afternoons here at this time of year, and currently Wed.-Thurs. are looking good (or maybe I should say bad) for a potential severe outbreak.

Dawn

Glad everyone is mostly okay! Feel bad for the people with injuries and property devastation! My daughter called to warn us of the storm as we were heading home from Grand Lake. We finally got home to find we had four broken windows and some roof damage. There are lots of broken windows in our neighborhood. The garden took a good hit but as Dawn said, it's early enough in the season that at least we have time for it to recover or to replant. It's all okay at our house because everyone is fine! Take care!

In southern Logan County we escaped the hail. We were heading to Lowe's when we heard on the radio that the storm was heading our way, and turned around and returned home. My husband is an insurance agent and has been for 35 years, and he's never seen anything as widespread as this hailstorm. He had 35 messages on the answering machine this morning, and that is even with a message on his machine that gives callers the 1-800 number for claims. He's slowly working through them, so if anyone out there is having trouble getting a response from an insurance company, please know they are doing their best :). This was one whopper of a storm to say the least. One employee where I work lives in the heart of one of the hardest hit areas and had windows broken out on every level of her home and was having to empty water out of her lowest level. Glad to hear that no one here suffered any personal injury or major damage.

Suzie

You can see the extremely long track of the hail storm below. Don't wait too long because the NWS graphics change often.

Here is a link that might be useful: NSW Graphic of Hail Storm Track & Hail Size

I have lost all my tomatoes, they where smashed to smithereens. But other than that we are fine....

oh, well, off to buy transplants...

Can you even still buy tomato plants? I figured they were gone by now.

Did some cleanup today, but lots of plants, like my big tall Hops vine was smashed to the ground in bits and pieces. Some of my plants are difficult to replace this time of year - you can only buy Hops rhizomes between February and April, for instance. Hopefully, the rhizomes will throw up new foliage.

I have golf ball size divets all over the garden beds - looks like I have mini Prairie Dogs living here, LOL! One of the hummer feeders broke a bit, but may be repairable. My cute little house numbers mounted and framed, were beat off the house and lay in splinters. Some of the seedlings I've just repotted had pots full of golf ball size hail last night, so they got smashed pretty good. Don't know if they will survive or not yet - too early to tell. A lot of the False Nettle patch was so broken and stems completely snapped at the ground - can't get this locally - so hope it will recover as I've been getting Red Admiral eggs on it. The fennel was just broken in half - all of it, and should probably come back. The Clematis 'Polish Spirit' was pretty much beaten off the trellis and is hanging over the daylilies right now. I need to try to remount it to the trellis, but today was mostly trimming and cutting back that and limbs from trees. Just too many things to mention here really. Honeysuckle leaves and blooms are scattered all over the garden. Just unbelievable. Did I mention my big, beautiful Hostas?

Crown Heights Methodist Church lost many of their beautiful, historic stained glass windows I heard on the news. My ex's house just down the street had windows bashed in on the front of the house, and truck window and body damage. He lost all his maters and peppers. At least my two did well under the pine trees - a couple of broken stems, but the tomatoes and blooms are all intact.

But things will get better soon......it just looks like a mess right now.

Thanks for the offer, Lisa. You're so kind. I think there is really nothing left to do but try to tidy up and/or cut down the damaged plants. I worry about disease and insect damage now, so I want to get them trimmed up as soon as possible. Did some today and will do more tomorrow. Tomorrow is trash day, so wanted to get as much done as I could so I could get rid of the detritus.

Susan

I wasn't home to see the hail, but there was still some on the ground when I got home at 4am. I checked on the garden this morning...not so good. It looks like most of the tomatoes will survive, but the peas (that were just starting to really produce!) were beaten to death. All of the remaining spring crops were pretty much smashed to bits. But, at least we didn't have any car damage like so many other people in the metro.

I'm sorry about the veggie damage. :( My flowers will mostly recover I think. It's early enough, all the new flowering stuff will take over.

As a kid back home in Colorado, peas and blackeyed peas were a sure fire way to invite hail. It never bothered me a bit (not a pea person), but it used to make my parents so mad!! It probably didn't help when I gloated....

I had more superficial damage than I noticed yesterday. I may fully appreciate the excess tomatoes, I did lose a few in the front I think. It's a good thing the irises and peonies were finished, the hail broke a lot of the iris stalks and the driving rain took out any remaining peony blooms. I had divets in my yard too.

Ezzirah, I hope you found replacement tomato plants. There are still tons and tons of them in the stores here.

Susan, I don't know what the stores have up in the OKC area, but all the big box stores here have tons and tons of Bonnie Tomato Plants in everything from six-packs to 4" or 5" peat pots. Some stores have very large tomato plants with blooms and tomatoes on them in 3 or 4-gallon pots, although you pay a lot for those.

I hope all of you who suffered damage to your property and gardens make a quick recovery. If we have to have hail at all, I'd rather have it in April or May when the plants are still growing pretty quickly and can make a fast recovery. Hail in June or July is a lot more damaging because the plants are older and don't bounce back quite as quickly because they're also heat-stressed.

This seems like the worst hail year in general that we've had in probably a decade. Every day it seems like it is hailing somewhere here.

Dawn

Sorry to hear of the severe hail damage. We have escaped except for rain, 4 inches thus far. It has also been abnormally cool. I mowed with a jacket on yesterday afternoon. The water bubbled up out of the mole runs when I ran over them. I know it was too wet, but they are predicting more rains so I thought I better chance it.

My tomato plants are still in the pots. This is going to be the latest planting I have ever done. But I figure wet and cool isn't good for them anyway. I am dragging them in and out of the weather. They are getting pretty darned leggy but I have dealt with that before.

I was at the sweeper store buying bags yesterday and the owner told me he risked 6 tomato plants and already all but two are diseased! Yikes. Doesn't sound promising. We are really needing some hot sun here.

glenda

If you go down to the Lowes in Midwest city they have tomato transplants still. Same with the Walmart there and the Home Depot there. For anyone who is looking.

At least we are physically ok, that is a blessing...

Horn Seed in NW Okc also still has a good many tomato plants. I think they may be getting low on certain varieties, but there are still lots of plants and they still look pretty good.

Debra

We were out of town, but came home to messages from people wanting to know if they could buy replacement Cub Scout tomato plants. Apparently it was really bad. I see no evidence of damage, and am really grateful. Following Monday's tornado, my constitution continued to be tested, and I'm just not up for anything else this week.

I am so sad for everyone who had losses to veggies, especially tomatoes. I can hear Rosanne Rosanadanna, "It's always something." We gardeners have had our fill of "somethings" already this year.

Dawn, I had to make an unscheduled trip to Houston this week. I honked at you coming and going. Did you hear the toot from I-40?

Seedmama, you poor dear! Sounds like you really need a relaxing day at a spa. I-40 can get you to either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, but it won't get you anywhere near Houston. Hang in there, hopefully after Thursday we'll have fair weather with no threats from Ma Nature for a good while.

Debra

Maybe Seedmama was trying to outsmart the DEA, who was on to her wily ways with the meetings in the Walgreen's parking lot, moving small white objects from a manilla envelope to a plastic baggie :) She headed to Houston via California.....

Lisa

Y'all, I'm sure Seedmama meant I-35.

Seedmama, Was that you honking the horn on the highway? I thought I heard you honking and told Tim, "Hey, I think Seedmama is driving down the interstate..." Well, OK, I made up that last part. The term "unscheduled trip" worries me. I hope everything is OK.

Sunday's hailstorm hit so suddenly....and now we know that there's a high chance of more hail today, tonight and tomorrow in parts of our state. Is it just me, or does this seem like the worst hail year in quite a while?

Dawn

Worst hail year? How about worst weather year? Let's travel back to the Christmas Eve blizzard....or the snow storm about a month later...or the March that REFUSED to warm up....or the April that was more like May which has turned to May that feels more like April....

We still haven't opened our pool....and we've already been 4 days without power....and I'm REALLY dreading whatever tomorrow's weather might bring...

I don't like the heat of July & August, but I think I'll welcome it over this other garbage. seedmama - hope everything is okay!! Just heard of new member to the Harrah boyscout troop!

Paula

Paula,

That is an excellent point, my friend! Now that you mention it, the weather has been bizarre all year long.

If you follow the tropical weather forecasts like I do, you know that Sea Surface Temperatures in April were the highest they've ever been. Why is that important? Because SSTs are a major player in the formation of hurricanes. Most forecasters expect a really busy tropical storm and hurricane season. Normally, that doesn't cause us much grief here in OK, but we have had the remains of tropical storms/hurricans bring us intense and heavy rain and high winds to some parts of our state every now and then.

I am concerned about tomorrow too. When Dr. Forbes raised the TorCon from 6 to 8 this afternoon, I told Tim "I hope he didn't just put the hex on us". Seriously, I have watched his use of the TorCon Index closely and he is very accurate. That's scarey.

I hope everyone stays safe tonight and tomorrow. At least we don't have volcanoes here. (If I'm wrong about that, I don't want to know it.)

Dawn

Oh dear yes, I did mean I-35. It appears my fatigue is speaking for itself. I am unspeakably grateful that I was the one in a position to gives assistance, rather than receive it, following Monday's tornadoes. That wonderful fact doesn't prevent exhaustion.

When we built our house we put a good sized safe room in a large basement, with sharing in mind. We've accumulated a nice collection of blow up beds and sleeper sofas, and gotten old sheets at estate sales over the years. When creating this plan several years ago, we envisioned asking all comers to contribute a frozen casserole and a board game at the beginning of the storm season. Weather has been unremarkable thus far, and we've never followed through on collections. It occurs to me if I'll just ask, people will be happy to contribute.

The other thing I've never gotten around to is terminating the ends to the phone and TV in the safe room. Today seems like really good day to make it a priority. Our saferoom is registered, but why wait for help if we could call out?

Dawn, "At least we don't have volcanoes here. (If I'm wrong about that, I don't want to know it.)" Too funny, but you shouldn't have said that out loud. I used to point out one advantage of Oklahoma over California is we had advance notice of tornadoes, and didn't have to worry about sudden earthquakes. Earthquakes here have become so routine, the neighbors and I often forget to mention them in small talk. I've stopped trying to straighten the pictures on the walls. I jinxed myself. The earthquakes are all my fault!

Seedmama, See there, I really can read your mind. Now, I hope you're taking care of yourself and not wearing yourself out too much helping everyone else. You have to save some energy in case one of the next weather monsters hits y'all too.

By the way, I saw your thread on 'alerts' and agreed with every word. I like it when the severe weather threads stay high on the page long enough for everyone to see them, but there are times we need follow-up info from folks who are seeing new alerts or new developments and want to share them. It seems like a fine line to walk, doesn't it?

Today, I am going to keep posting new alerts as new threads for as long as I can. It might not be all that long if the storms develop here first and move north/northeast.

I have watched huge amounts of moisture stream overhead from Texas, across the Red River, above and beyond us and towards all of y'all. I don't like that. I am afraid all the Gulf moisture in the air could contribute to significant storms.

It is so nice that your shelter is open to your friends and neighbors. Ours is too, but it is just one of those little in-ground ones that is about 6' x 8' so it doesn't hold huge numbers of people. I've already touched base with some of the neighbors to make sure they know they're welcome to climb into the shelter. I urged them to just come over, open the door and climb in, even if we aren't at home.

I've been in the kitchen baking cookies and muffins so I'll have something to feed hungry firefighters if they go out on search/rescue/recovery missions during this round of storms, in addition to their usual fire and accident calls. Hopefully, we won't need the cookies and muffins and I can just freeze them and save them for another bad day.

The earthquakes here surprised me a tiny bit when we moved here, but not a lot. We even have occasional earthquakes in parts of north central Texas, although they are less frequent than the ones in central OK. The large number of quakes the last 18 months or so in central OK does seem a tiny bit excessive.

We moved here in mid-April 1999 and didn't have a tornado shelter. Then the May 3, 1999, tornado outbreak occurred and we didn't even know it. Because internet and cell service were almost nonexistent here then (later on, the addition of new cell towers fixed the cell phone issue but internet access was much slower) and local TV reception was very poor (DirectTV saved us), we didn't even know tornadoes were occurring in the OKC area until our phone starting ringing with folks from Texas calling to see if we'd been hit by tornadoes.

That year, you couldn't get a tornado shelter here because of the huge demand in the OKC area, but we had a shelter put in early in 2000. Prior to this year, we probably hadn't been in that tornado shelter but maybe once or twice a year and some years not at all. We've already been in it at least 3 times this year because of storms. It does make a great root cellar too.

I'm hoping none of us have to flee to the shelters today or tonight, but know it is likely some of us will. I think I am almost more afraid of the hail which they keep describing as potentially larger than baseballs than the possibility of a tornado. Neither one is a pleasant option though.

I won't blame you for the earthquakes because you redeemed yourself by creating a whole new method for lasagna vegetable composing/bed building and strawberry gardening. : ) I think the genius of what you did there gives you redemption for causing the earthquakes in Oklahoma.

C'mon, on a day like today, we have to find something to laugh about.....

Dawn

Not so sure about laughing... I drove my car out of the garage, and took some pics. Positively sad.

{{gwi:1104820}}

close up:

{{gwi:1104821}}

most damage is here, on the hood:

{{gwi:1104822}}
But, I guess, I don't need to worry about getting dings in parking lots anymore.

Moni

Moni,

Poor car. See there, you still have your sense of humor too.

My sister-in-law's brand new car was so badly damaged by a storm with baseball to softball sized hail that it was totaled. That was in the late 1970s.

Dawn

Moni - my boss (who's scheduled to get married Saturday) had his brand new Acura ZDX totaled from this last hail storm. Sadly, the hail also destroyed the courtyard of his new home where he'd been nuturing hostas and about 12 flats of impatiens since they are holding their reception there. Don't feel alone....

Your car is an awfully pretty color considering it looks like it just survived a scarring acne attack!

Paula, I found out by reading posts on the Hosta forum, not to cut back the Hosta foliage, but to leave it because it feeds them for next year, damaged or not. Ugh....are they ugly, though!

The Belle Isle Walmart was closed - yes, I made a trip over there thinking they would be open now, but nope, nada, zip, no idea when they will open again.

Then on the way home, I made a mistake by turning to go the back way into my neighborhood and forgot there was a Glass Replacement/Repair Shop on the corner there, and they were offering 50% off. Needless to say, I got stuck trying to weave my way among the cars double parked, exiting and entering, to get their busted windshields fixed. I am truly thankful I did not have to do that!

Susan