| April 3rd, 2007 | ||||
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By the time we got into Maumelle the cell was displaying impressive atom-bomb convective development on the leading edge - and these fists of energy gradually fed themselves into the main updraft as the evening light faded and the storm became a gray, backlit mass on the western horizon. We also noticed that the cell had taken a more southerly turn - and repositioned into west Little Rock via I-430 which took us across the mighty Arkansas River. As NWS LIT issued another severe warning for the cell with mentions of hail - we decided to proceed west on Hwy 10 towards Pinnacle Mountain in an attempt to verify the hail warnings for the cell which was now part of a multicell cluster. As darkness fell around 7.30PM we entered the edge of the core and proceeded west on Hwy 10 until clicks of hail were noted. Excited at the possibility of seeing some good hail for the first time in a long time - we grinned as, in total darkness now, the hail got larger and heavier as we passed the Hwy 300 turn off to Pinnacle Mountain. The hail was also extremely hard, and the noise it made as it struck the windshield was quite impressive. At the Lake Maumelle area, we turned off onto Maumelle Harbor Road and sat up for a while watching as the hail got heavier. We took one or two brief, brave exits from the van to scrabble around in the dirt after a few pieces of hail that were approaching nickel size - and Jason decided to call this hail verification into NWS LIT. Shortly after we called the warning in we sat and watched, speechless, as the main part of the cell's core moved over us and all raindrops were virtually eliminated. Precipitation was almost pure hail - hard, clear hail. Our ears rang with the thunderous clanging that the ice made on our windshield, and we drove back east a couple of miles before pulling off the road again and sitting next to a grove of pine trees to enjoy the show. We had no idea what was in store for us. Our relaxing dalliance with this small severe cell turned into a very interesting evening around 7.55PM when the storm dumped it's hail from aloft right over our highway for over half an hour. All traffic on Hwy 10 ceased as the cold, clear, hard hail fell in COPIOUS amounts of golfball, quarter and nickel sized hailstones. Soon we gave up even trying to voice our enthusiasm to each other - given that neither of us could hear the other talk despite being two feet away from each other. We felt like we were in a steel drum being beaten by a hundred people with sticks, as outside the grass danced with white hailstones and the occasional "THUNK" from the van's roof above our heads signified the odd baseball that had come out of orbit. Sheesh! Jason motioned to me to place my hand on the roof of the vehicle, and in doing so I could literally feel the van's roof flex and resonate with our hail party that was raging outside. In the meantime, Jason called NWS LIT once again to call in our report of golfball sized hail. Then......the hail fog began. From the steady and fierce accumulation of hail outside there came ghostly, drifting banks of frigid hail fog. The swaths of hail fog wafted across our highway in the darkness lit by streetlights, and although they were only roughly 8ft deep they succeeded in effectively wiping out all visibility for us. All traffic had halted at this point on the highway, and we could do nothing but sit tight and watch and wonder if it was ever going to stop. About twenty minutes into our surprising hail ordeal amidst the rattling on our windshield and huge thuds of the odd baseball, we noticed the unmistakable scent of pine being injected through our air conditioning vents. This was when I realized that this event was fast becoming significant - when I realized that the pine forest we were parked next to was slowly but steadily being shredded by the hailstorm. The ditch next to our side road had also
become totally obscured in hail fog, and after about ten more minutes of
these conditions and with no let-up in the hail arriving we made the
decision to try and get back into the city by retracing our steps back
east on Hwy 10. We had no sooner got on the road and Jason had
started driving that we discovered that this would be easier planned than
executed. As Jason managed to accelerate to a whole eight miles per
hour, he suddenly exclaimed "the windshield!", and I looked over to see a
smorgasbord of spidered glass on his side of the vehicle. This
%^&*ing storm had just taken out our windshield - WTF??!? At this
point our small evening chase turned into a focused attempt to limp back
into the civilization of west Little Rock with a completely spidered
windshield from several clear, hard pieces of baseball sized hail.
We could not see the highway at all in front of us due to the extreme
hail fog, and for navigation we were reduced to me shouting directions at
Jason while peering directly down to the ground with my face squashed
against the cold glass of the passenger side window, watching intently the
white line of the edge of the highway weave closer and farther away from
us as Jason attempted to keep us on an even-keel. At a solid five
miles per hour we ascended a small hill and watched morbidly as we passed
a police car and several civilian vehicles which were in or very close to
the ditch on the opposite side of the road. At our passing one
stationary vehicle fell-in behind us - letting us cleave through the thick
accumulation of ice for them to get us back into Little Rock. What a
mean little multicell!!!! Eventually, at about 8.35PM we made it
back into the city and the hail eased up. We were allowed to drive
out of the mess - and made a quick, short journey of it back home to
Conway, elated (and a little rattled) at our flirt with a great and
surprising Arkansas hailstorm.
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