Dan and I drove to Sparkfun in Boulder and Rocky Mountain Test Equipment in Centennial today. After that, we stopped at IKEA to let the traffic settle down. While we got some cool and nifty things, we could hear thunder when we were near the checkout. We walked out at 8pm to see a fantastic lightning storm. Dan took one look at it and said we had to get moving. So, we did. The rain started before we were even out of Denver. By the time we hit Castle Pines Parkway, it was raining so hard we slowed down to about 40 mph.
Dan turned to me and said the clouds looked wrong. Then it started hailing. It wasn’t too bad, so we drove a little longer, thinking we could pull over in a minute. No Such Luck. It started hailing harder and we tried to find an underpass or turn off. No luck. People were pulling off everywhere and causing traffic jams. It was hailing harder and harder and the hail was piling up on the road. At one point I think it was nearly 2.5 inches deep. Plus all the water! Oh My God! We were afraid that the windshield would break because the hail was coming down so hard. It was so loud, that Dan and I had to shout at each other to be heard. Pretty bad considering that we were less than a foot apart!
Finally, near Castle Rock we were able to pull off under an underpass where we waited for at least 20 minutes. It finally lightened up and we drove into Colorado Springs. We stopped at Arbys to take a break. The back of the truck was full of hail from pea size up to nearly golf ball size! There are dents in the hood of the truck and on the left side. In the middle of the window casing on the driver’s side door, there is a dent nearly as big as my thumb where the hail dented it. I’ll put up pictures tomorrow.
Here is a Facebook page on the storm. Channel 7 News had this to say about it. Photos and story from Channel 9, Channel 4
Here is the Denver Post story. Wild Weather South of Denver.