Crazy weather

I've been in some crazy weather before. I survived an ice storm in 1996. My car, when I lost control and slammed into a pickup truck in Idaho, did not. On several visits to Indiana, I have been in thunderstorms that dropped a few inches of rain in a few minutes and where lightning lit the sky like July. Also in Indiana, I've seen the sky turn that weird green color that signals a tornado.

But yesterday evening, on Highway 97 outside Ellensburg, I experienced some crazy weather. I heard the weather report that said the heat possibly would be interrupted by a thunderstorm. It's common enough in summer to have some thunder, lightning and a good amount of rain after a heat spell. So when the drops started falling, I did not think it would be a big deal. Then the drops were bigger -- I could see them from the front of the car before they hit the windshield and made a splat the size of a half dollar. I flipped the wipers to maximum and kept driving, slowing just a bit as I drove up a hill and behind a motorcycle whose future I thought was iffy at best. The visibility was about 20 feet between the splashing and my window steaming up.

Then the hail joined the the fray. Hail is pretty rare in Eastern Washington, and I have not been in many hailstorms. The stones started small, maybe the size of rock salt. Then the increased in size, and I finally pulled over for a couple minutes. The hail was the size of gravel -- maybe a lemon drop candy. And the stones pelted my windshield and car, and it was a bit thrilling.

I continued my driving as the rain continued, and eventually passed. But that was some crazy weather.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.