Love the rain, but those white blobs are pea & marble sized hail. Yikes!
This pile of pea-sized hail stones pooled by our front door.
Then we looked out the back door and yelled, “The baby pineapple!!!” at the same time. By then, we were getting pummeled, and there was no way to stage a rescue without getting beat to death. Luckily, those big wide fronds did a great job of deflecting the hail stones. A few did land around the pineapple fruit and roll down to sit at the base, but there is no apparent damage to the fruit. The fronds didn’t fare so well. As you can see in this next photo, they suffered substantial hail damage. You can see the white pea-sized dents on the fronds.
The hail left white dents on the pineapple fronds. Ouch!
We’re expecting more storms this week as our record high temperatures meet waves of moisture blowing in off the Gulf of Mexico. Rest assured that I will be crafting some sort of shelter to prevent our baby pineapple from suffering any more trauma, and TCP and I from suffering any more pineapple-based heart palpitations. On the bright side, we finally got some rain!
Normal year-to-date rainfall for the Houston area: 20″
Year-to-date rainfall since January of this year: 1.33″
Average temperature in Houston this time of year: 90F
Previous record temperature for this week (1980): 98F
New record temperature for Houston set this week: 105F
(data courtesy of the Houston Chronicle website)
Is it just me, or does it seem like we’ve had some of the wackiest weather ever this year? Record breaking floods and draught, a record-breaking number of wildfires, late snows and tornadoes. What gives? I’m nervous to think what the hurricane season may bring. I mean, c’mon…. Massachusetts had a tornado! When is the last time anyone heard of a tornado in the Boston area? Feel free to throw in your 2 cents worth. Are you experiencing wacky weather in your area?
Inside NanaBread's Head 
Yes, this year has been CRAZY for weather! Two weeks ago it was rainy and 50’s and yesterday it was 103 degrees here and the humidity hit you like a brick wall. I’m glad baby pineapple is okay, I hate hail.
Is that my house across the street? I think I could DEFINITELY live in a house like that, ha! :)
I saw your heat wave on the news last night and I was stunned. It got up to 105 here this week, and that’s really unusual for us. I can’t imagine how weird that is for everyone up north! I don’t mind small hail, since it doesn’t cause much damage. But some areas of Texas had hail the size of baseballs over the past week. That’s some crazy big hail. Usually, it’s golf ball size hailstones that clump together. That stuff will destroy your cars, break all your windows and tear holes in your roof! That kind of hail I can live without.
I’m so excited that you noticed your house! I almost wrote a postscript at the bottom of this story saying, “PS – If you’re reading this, Kandi, that’s your house across the street. Still there, still available, still waiting for you to move it. Lots of windows for natural light and plenty of room for 3 kids and an energetic lab. Oh, and did I mention I baked a LOT of cookies this week?” HA! Let me know when you need a recommendation for a good moving company.
You had me at cookies. I’ll fly down tonight. ;)
Wahoo! Kirsten, you’d better fire up the jet. Sounds like Kandi’s a motivated buyer!
Save the pineapple!
I know! I know! I actually thought about grabbing a big golf umbrella and standing out there for the entire storm, but that thought passed pretty quickly when I saw how heavy the hail was. I love my baby pineapple, but I was afraid of getting pummeled to death. Does that make me a bad pineapple mother? I sure hope not. It helped that those long, wide fronds were deflecting hailstones. They were bouncing off the pineapple plant like they’d landed on a trampoline. I think we witnessed self-preservation in action.
Like KandiLand we had 50’s two weeks ago, tornados and hail last week. The hail was silver dollar size and pancake shaped. What’s up with that? We now have to get a new roof and one window and have new dents on everything. Now it’s in the upper 90’s to lower 100’s this week! My plants are literally melting!! Anybody have a large spatula I can borrow??
Sorry to hear about the dents, but your dollar pancake hail sounds kind of cool. Did you get any photos? Sounds like that old flying saucer ice we used to see in restaurants. I loved that ice. Not as much as I love Sonic ice, but it was still great. Hope all goes well with the new roof, meaning that I hope it’s quick and painless and the insurance company does what they’re paid to do without a lot of fuss. Hope your plants survive the wacky weather, too. Your flower beds were so pretty when we were there in March.
My reaction to this borders between “Really, Mom? REALLY?” and “Oh Geez, how can we create a sturdy, mini-popup cover for that thing!” The only real solution here is to bring that baby to Austin!
Glad Spike made it through okay! Oh, and don’t forget those cookies when you come to my house!!
Be careful what you wish for, honey. There are at least 100 cookies in plastic containers heading your way this weekend. Better pick up some milk and coffee!
In our part of Canada we had an extra long winter with more snow than normal. Spring was late in coming, and it has been very cool. We are just starting our rainy season, so it is hard to say what it will be like! Some think this is all very abnormal, but it seems likely that this weather is a return to what it was like here many decades ago!
You make an interesting point, Margie. Is this weird weather, or is it just part of an extended weather cycle? It might be worth researching. Since hurricane season officially kicked off on June 1st, I think we’re about to experience the start of our rainy season here, too.
Our weather has been weird as hell. It was 102 degrees on Tuesday and today we dropped into the 60s. NOT normal at all. I’ll be honest, I definitely think that Global Warming has something to do with it, but how we in our day-to-day lives deal with it is totally different than say, everyone carrying a special grocery tote or driving an electric car, you know?
p.s. Save the pineapple! We will all worry for her ;)
I saw your 102F temps on the national news this week, and immediately thought of your wedding. I’m happy to hear that it has cooled back down. I hope you have beautiful weather for your big day. We’ll be thinking of you and Marcus this weekend. Much love to you both – j
We’ve had crazy weather here Up North, too. The past few days have been in the 90’s and super humid, which is HOT for us. The next few days have a high of 60, and a frost warning tomorrow night. What?! If it snows, I will come unglued. We may just get in a bidding war with Kandi for that house across the street.
Good grief. From 90’s to 60’s to frost in just a few days? That is crazy. Down here, we’re just hot. Consistently hot. I love the idea of you and Kandi competing for the house across the street! First one to move in gets a mile-high apple pie and a big pot of chicken & dumplings!
Here in Derry (Ireland) the weather has been pretty rubbish to say the least. We have had 2 days out of the whole of May and June that would count as our ‘summer’ days (up to 25C). There was snow in March then a heat wave in April (on my birthday week YAY! XD) A fortnight ago there was a hurricane which knocked down billboards, church steeples, trees. Last week there was a twister just outside the city which although it would be nothing like the strength of American tornadoes, we just NEVER EVER see one. This was the first one in about 45 years in the north of Ireland. And we have had lashing rain and hail for the past few days. In fact, there was a flood warning in place in Derry but I travelled just 90 miles away and there was a heatwave in Belfast ???
Needless to say, the weather is going crazy here too :P
And I haven’t had a chance to comment lately but thanks for using my idea to help name the pineapple. I’m honoured :)
Wow. That IS some weird weather. Heat waves, snow, hurricanes and tornadoes? Holy cow. I hope some beautiful weather is coming your way as a reward for what you’ve seen so far. It’s great to see a comment from you again. Hope school is going well. I’ve missed you, and La Piña Saparot sends her love, too.
I can’t stop buying pineapples this summer! Next up is grilled pineapple.
I hope biting into your little pineapple baby will be oh so satisfying, and I’m glad it made it through the hail!