Holy Hail! June 24, 2006 Boulder Hail storm.
I'm standing in the Home Depot Parking lot on Arapahoe and 30th in Boulder, looking at the sky thinking, "Gosh, I really need
to get this sap off of my car, and this has potential for me to skip the car wash and let mother nature do her thing."
The clouds were amazing and I
was cursing myself for having left my camera at home.
Rather than head home I decide to go exploring and no more than a few blocks up 28th I
get hammered with some hail and a gust front and decide to turn around and get the heck out of the path.
Clearly I should have called someone or
paid attention to the fact that the wind was coming from the North-northwest.
So I get a few blocks and after realizing this hail
had potential to crack my windshield if it hit from the right angle,
I pull the heck off Arapahoe and sit in a parking lot with my car at a
strategic angle so as not to crack my windshield. Hail everywhere, dime sized, penny sized, golfball sized (sort of slushy though),
and then
back to dime sized and started all over again. I figured, give it a minute and it will pass. I call Josh, hoping he was at his computer,
and make sure I shouldn't risk being knocked out by the hail to get to shelter if there was some chance of a tornado. Luckily he
could get me enough information to let me know I should stay in my car. My parents own my Explorer,
so I thought I'd call them and see if they could guess where I was and what that noise was. My mom guessed it right away and passed
the phone to my dad so he could hear it. They weren't too happy as my brother still has dents in his explorer from
a storm in LaCrosse, WI a few years ago. The hail lasted maybe 20 minutes? I have no idea, I was enjoying it way too much.
As soon as I felt I could drive in it again, I tried getting out of the parking lot and the part by the Movie Theater on Arapahoe had 1.5feet of water sitting in it. I made my way out of it without driving through the deep stuff and headed home. As I got to my turnoff on 11th street, all of the storm sewers (is that what you call them here?) were overflowing and spitting up water. There were inches of hail on the ground and all of the rain from the hill was rushing down towards the public library.
I got to my apartment and the thought entered my mind that it might be flooded... I'm technically in the 500year floodplain and I guess that just shows you that I'm not at a good elevation when it rains. My Janitor was in the parking lot and carried me over a nice puddle that was about a foot deep so I could get into my apartment without ruining my shoes and make sure the water wasn't rushing in. The guy next door had the water against his patio door and the water sat just below mine, so I didn't get any inside, thank god! There was water everywhere in the hallways. So as long as my apartment was safe, I grabbed the camera, put on some flip flops to get through the water and headed out to take pictures of the amusing situation. Here's what I got:
11th and Arapahoe:
After checking out the Radar and satellite, I thought I'd save a few images:
Boulder obs from campus: Check out the gust front and temp drop along with the pressure
and the precip is off the chart!: 
Check out the DBZ!!!: 
Storm reports:
Hail Reports (in CSV format)
Time Size Location County State Lat Lon Comments
2302 100 10 SE ESTES PARK LARIMER CO 4027 10539 (BOU)
2305 100 6 N FORT COLLINS LARIMER CO 4064 10507 (BOU)
2340 88 3 NNW BOULDER BOULDER CO 4007 10527 (BOU)
2356 175 2 S BOULDER BOULDER CO 4000 10526 (BOU)
0010 100 2 S BOULDER BOULDER CO 4000 10525 WINDSHIELD BROKEN (BOU)
0020 88 10 S BLAIR WASHINGTON NE 4140 9614 (OAX)
0025 75 ACKLEY HARDIN IA 4255 9305 (DMX)
0026 88 5 E CHATFIELD RESERVOIR DOUGLAS CO 3955 10497 (BOU)
0026 75 LAKEWOOD JEFFERSON CO 3970 10511 (BOU)
0037 88 6 NE CRESBARD FAULK SD 4523 9886 (ABR)
0042 175 3 S LAKEWOOD JEFFERSON CO 3965 10511 (BOU)
0101 100 1 NNW EVERGREEN JEFFERSON CO 3965 10535 (BOU)
0103 100 2 W HIGHLANDS RANCH DOUGLAS CO 3955 10501 (BOU)
0119 75 4 ENE CONIFER JEFFERSON CO 3954 10523 (BOU)
All of this made me feel slightly better about missing out on the waterspout(s?) on Lake Winnebago just a few miles from my home back in Wisconsin this afternoon. From what I can see right now, my car has zero dents. Hail must have been soft enough! Judging from the level of my pool I wouldn't be surprised if we got 3 inches of rain/hail.