STORM

So, I was driving toward downtown to buy some boots for my field work, and the radio started talking about a big storm headed our way.  I thought "yeah, right..."  The weather people never get anything right, and I usually get my hopes up for nothing.  So, I went about my business.  After trying the local outdoor store, and finding them deficient in the hiking shoe department, I decided to bite the bullet and head over to REI.  As I was waiting in line to buy my pair of Asolos, I heard what I thought was a jet plane flying over the REI, which is weird because the approach to Austin Bergstrom is nowhere near this part of town, so I looked out the window to see sheets of rain falling from the sky!  Nice.  Rain.  We need it.  Thinking that was the extent of the storm, I decided to go to the grocery store to get some bread and then headed home.  When I got home I turned on the TV to see what was going on with the weather. Tornado warnings for our area.  Heavy hail and thunderstorms imminent. 

About 15 minutes later, this happened.

At the bottom of the above picture, you can see a quarter on the tile... for scale.

Most of these ones in my hand are split in half from landing on our driveway, or from being driven horizontally by 50 mph winds into the brick of our house.

I think the windows were all spared by the sun screens we have on them.  Thankfully, our car was in the garage.  My friend, who lives over by REI, was driving to the airport just after this cell passed over to pick up his mother.  He said that several cars were pulled off the road just to the south of his house with shattered windshields from baseball size hail.  In Marble Falls, a town in the hill country about an hour to the west of us, one highway was closed because it was covered in a foot and a half of hail.  Yep.  A foot and a half of HAIL.

Welcome to the heart of Texas, yall.