About 12:20am last night, a huge storm blew through Austin, with gold-ball sized hail lasting what seemed like a long time, but was probably only 5 or 10 minutes. As a neighbor noted, it sounded we were "under artillery fire (or in a washing machine with metal golf balls)."
My dear sweet husband ran and threw blankets and comforters over our cars to protect them from dents, while I stood outside on the porch watching in amazement as small branches came raining down all over the yard and street.
The storm blew in fast and hard from the west, and yet hail landed at my east facing front door, 6 feet in from the roof over the porch. I think the hail was breaking the small branches off. Power went out briefly a couple of times. The wind was blowing quite hard, but I've seen stronger, longer-lasting winds blow through here before. What I haven't seen before was the constant rain of small tree limbs - a shower of leaves and limbs.
Some neighbors believe we may have had a bit of a tornado -- apparently, the damage was much worse further east: broken windshields and house windows, trees down and even uprooted, plus many people had their power out for most of the night. Maybe they're right. At one point, from inside with the storm door locked, the door started pulsating back and forth, and I actually began to be a little afraid that we might be having a tornado.
The back of our garage (facing west) shows how hard the hail was hitting. (See clean spots in the picture below). Wooden chairs on the back deck have some impact splinters.
Hail on the deck, 15-20 minutes after the brief hailstorm:
Morning after the brief hailstorm (front yard, shredded plants in garden, shredded banana plant):
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