Freak hail storm in California - ruining multiple fruit crops - looks like winter in april!

www.thepacker.com...

One of our field men said it’s the worst hail he’s ever seen,” said John Thiesen, division manager Giumarra Bros. Fruit Co. division in Reedley, Calif. “It’s literally stripping leaves off the tree.”

this does not look good esp for peach, apricot, nectarine, & drupe/prune orchards, which may have turn into early puree; fruit harvest is only a month away

prepare for food shortages and extremely high food prices.
i knew this was gonna happen.
weather is fooked.

It was quite the day for weather today in California with the thunderstorms and the hail.

There was even a tornado touchdown near Stockton.

What was that sound when he stopped and rolled down the window?

Originally posted by zayonara
What was that sound when he stopped and rolled down the window?

These kind of things

We have crazy weather here in Oregon too. Rain hail snow sun wind Wind WIND more and more rain then hail. In fact I think Its 2012'n as I type.

Not so freaky... I lived in Central California from around 1985 up until 2001. I have VHS video from around this time in 1999 -2000. will have to look at the video again for the date. Just South East of Merced, Ca. hail and tonadoes. Hail in orchards like we had never seen! Highway 99 was so slushy with it everyone had to pull over. Needless to say my car broke down on a back road and a CHP gave me and my 2 young sons a ride back to Atwater. He talked about tornado reports with that storm. My husband and I were riding out that day to tornado chase... had to call a tow truck.... was scary .. the fruit and nuts came through it ok. That year was crazy for weather. If I could put all my VHS stories on DVD I would love to share them.. but don't know how.. No need to panic out there... it's happened before

What the hell is a hail cannon?

reply to post by BiggerPicture


In 1973, while visiting a girlfriend in Ontario, CA ( I was in College then and it was June) we heard a racket outside. Her building had a catwalk instead of a hall and hail was coming down really fast. It left perhaps four inches of small sized hail on the ground and then moments later it all melted away. This does happen now and then.

In Idaho I ended up stuck in a blizzard once on the 8th of July after spending the 4th of July Holiday and the next few days with friends on a lake shore enjoying the sun. Dropped two feet of snow in a couple of hours and was all melted by that night. I got stuck up to my axles and had to wait until it melted to get out.

No doubt this is very bad news. Thanks for the post.

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady


If I'm not mistaken, a hail cannon is a type of vortex cannon that is shot up into the sky in attempts to disrupt storm clouds, with hopes of decreasing the odds of hail destroying crops.

its not the worst HAIL you've seen like the orchardsman said (above)? wow well that's reassuring its not the end of the world then.

yet

the scene of Lodi's hail looked wicked too, its just weird/wintry lookin to me i guess cuz didnt melt like in the summer it does right away)

www.tornadoproject.com...

Here's reports of tornados in Ca. Scroll down to Merced County and my dating was wrong about my video of the hailstorm. It was 1998. Just needed to correct that. I haven't thought of Ca. since I left that sorry valley 11 years ago. good memories but not a good place to breathe.



to add because I talked about the tornados.... with the rather small tornados or funnel clouds was tons of hail. Even a funnel cloud can pop out of all that ice

wow i read the news everyday and saw nothing about this, this is quite important i think if its destroying crops.

reply to post by BiggerPicture

What a video. I'm shocked... Reedley is one of the areas I've been in and out of for years as a produce trucker and I've certainly never seen anything like that. Not even close! It looks like accumulated snow and thats right down in the Central Valley!

Lodi looked like something I've seen once in awhile in California. It's rare, but hail isn't unheard of, certainly. Reedley though?? It's hard to just call that hail!

...and I was just on a thread in the past couple days where a person was saying this was the warmest period on record and Global Warming is upon is. Yikes...... Mother Nature has just blown some fuses and gone generally nuts.

Originally posted by starks1089
wow i read the news everyday and saw nothing about this, this is quite important i think if its destroying crops.

Hope not .. but I've lived there in the Central Valley most of my life and the crops came out fine. Hope I'm right this time. Don't panic we get alot of produce overseas anyways, right? Still miss the yummy fresh peaches from Ca. though