Large hail in and around Pensacola

[Opal storm]

Had golf ball size hail at my house about an hour ago by a severe t'storm,that's now in southern AL.Also had some winds gusts close to 50mph.There was damage to vehicles on a highway in the Avalon area in Santa Rosa county.Probably going to see more of this today and into tomorrow.

[Ed1]

We got a downpour 3/4" of Rain in 15 minutes out of the storm, but no hail. The rain has practically stopped now.

[PurdueWx80]

The cell that gave you the big hail in Pensacola is quite impressive on radar images now and is just south of Troy, AL. This storm has had a hail spike on doppler radar for several hours - basically this means the radar beam is bouncing off of the giant ice particles in the storm towards the ground and then back at the radar, giving a false echo. If you look at the composite image/loop from the NW FL radar, you can see it quite clearly sticking out to the NNW of the storm.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS ... kevx.shtml

Once the storm to the SW of Panama City comes ashore, I imagine the NWS will issue a tornado warning, as it is a right-move and has an excellent hook feature on the SW side. It also appears to be riding along some sort of dewpoint gradient/boundary.

[WXBUFFJIM]

Yea, some of the hail near Elba was up to baseball size earlier with this storm. A dangerous hail producer.

[Anonymous]

Someone needs to tell the NWS about this as there is no severe wx reports around the Pensacola area... Or maybe the NWS knows and are too busy to update their maps

[PurdueWx80]

Someone needs to tell the NWS about this as there is no severe wx reports around the Pensacola area... Or maybe the NWS knows and are too busy to update their maps

I was just thinking the same thing as I was checking Florida's public statements....nada. There should be a local or 1-800 number to call these in. Check on the web or in the phone book.

[Opal storm]

Usually local TV stations ask the public to report any severe wx to their station.

[PurdueWx80]

They may sometimes report it to the NWS, but during busy severe weather days like today they are probably much too busy to call the weather service. The weather service will also sometimes compile a list and send it out in a big chunk later in the event.

Golfball-sized hail is definitely something that should be reported to the NWS - it will help them out with warnings, and in the end that should keep you safer!

...Edited to clean things up a bit...

[Anonymous]

Yeah--report the size (no marbles allowed) as well as the time and location of the hail--I am surprised no skywarn spotters reported this.

[Opal storm]

Pensacola New Journal-

Thunderstorm and tornado watches and the rare sight of hail dominated the weather Saturday in the Pensacola Bay Area.

Golfball-sized hail pelted Pensacola residents in the Cordova Park area Saturday morning before softball-sized hail pounded Milton residents soon afterward. The National Weather Service said the storms were widespread. A tornado watch for Northwest Florida was in effect until 9 p.m.

At 10:40 a.m. Bobby Kay, 50, had pulled into the driveway of his home on Fox Road in Cordova Park when he heard something that sounded like a pellet gun hit his pickup truck.

"You could almost see it coming the sky was ominous," Kay said. "You could hear about 10 car alarms go off."

A hail stone smacked Kay's head when he ran into the house to get his video camera.
"Man, it hurt. Thank God, I had a baseball cap on," Kay said. A hail stone left a circular mark on Kay's windshield and pelted the paint off his truck.

Severe weather is typical starting in the spring, said Gene Jacobi, a meteorological technician at the National Weather Service.

"But the large hail is rather uncommon," Jacobi said.

Henry Gilmore, 88, of Pace was visiting his wife, Catherine, at Heritage Nursing Home in Milton Saturday morning. As he was leaving, the nursing home's parking lot, it started to hail.

"All of a sudden the ice just started falling out of the sky. I've never seen anything like it," Gilmore said. "I mean, I'm telling you, the ground was covered."

Hail "bumped" the roof of Gilmore's car, and then, "three big ices hit the windshield and cracked it," he said. "I've seen snow, but never ice like this."

Phil Marshall, a used car manager at Pete Moore Chevrolet in Warrington, said he couldn't assess the damaged until the cars dry.

"Generally, you don't have much notice, and there's not much you can do to prepare," he said, adding that he received about 10 minutes' notice that the storm was coming giving his staff enough time to move some of the more expensive cars inside.

There are companies that specialize in removing dents left in cars by hail storms, but he expects some of the hail-damaged cars will be sold in Pete Moore's inventory reduction sale.

AMAZING

[hurricanefloyd5]

GrapaeFrurt size hail reported in the panhandle of florida earlier this afternoon or this evening... (before midnight)

[Guest]

Either upper-level temperatures were colder than normal or their were some SERIOUS updrafts, or both.

[Scorpion]

Grapefruit sized?? Hail that big can kill people!