Big storms last night

It was a crazy night for weather in the Rochester area last night.  We missed all of the big stuff earlier in the day, but at about 8PM, things started to get pretty wild.  We were watching the weather report, and there was a tornado spotted north of town.  They were getting golfball sized hail at the TV station on the north end of town.  Things were getting really dark out, but it looked like we were going to be south of the worst of the storm.  So, we decided to put Payton to bed.  About two minutes later, the rain started coming down in sheets and a west wind started whistling through the house.  We had all the windows closed and locked, but rain started coming in through the bottom of the windows on the west side of the house!  Right below the windows are vents, so the water went right down the vents and the gap around the vents, such that it started leaking from the ceiling in the kitchen and the basement.  I looked out the window at one point, and the wind was so strong that I gathered everyone up and went down the basement.  It looked like there was a hurricane going on outside.  By about 9PM most of the rain had stopped, and we scrambled to clean up all the water and get stuff drying right away.  The wind was intense, but I don’t think our windows should have leaked like that.  The previous owners had them installed in 2003 and 2004, so they are quite new.  I’m going to give the company that installed them a call. 

I was concerned about my apple trees in my back yard because they are loaded with apples and the ground was very soft.  One had blown over at about a 45 degree angle, so I tried to straighten it up the best I could.  It will survive, but I’ll need to give it some good support for a while.  A bunch of flower boxes had blown over on the deck, and even my grill, which was bungied to the deck rail, had blown over.  This must have been some serious wind, but I was thankful that my glass top patio table had remained on the ground.  Actually the weather report said there had been 75 MPH winds, which I don’t doubt.  Last night I also noticed that one of our maple trees had a big limb broken off, and it split down the trunk.  I figured that was wind damage as well, but upon inspection this morning, I believe that tree was struck by lightning! 

Fortunately, we didn’t get much hail, but the storms continued through the night.  Power flickered on and off for a while, and we lost our cable around midnight.  It was down for most of the night.  (I know this because I didn’t sleep very well.)  By morning, I had 3.5 inches of rain.  I bet we actually had more though, because when the wind was howling, I don’t think it was falling into the rain gauge. 

On my way to work this morning I didn’t pass too much damage.  There were lots of new lakes in the construction areas, and Willow Creek Golf Course was littered with downed tree branches, but that was the extent of it on my route.