Beginner Gardening: Microburst!, 1 by Xeramtheum

Xeramtheum wrote:
Late this afternoon as I was sitting reading I noticed that the leaves on my tree out front were showing their backs .. something made me get up decide to get up and go close up the greenhouse which was wide open. As I was closing it up, the wind was picking up and I heard thunder in the distance. I went inside the house to check the radar and saw this horrible purple blot almost on top of me. With a deafeningly loud crack of lightning, I shut down the computer and it started. The wind was gusting 30 to 40 mph and the rain was coming down so hard that it looked like a blizzard. The huge pine trees on the edge of my property were laying almost sideways the wind was blowing so hard. The rain was blowing sideways to the right .. then to the left. I heard hail .. thankfully it was sporatic and not very large and then power went out .. the lightning and thunder was on top of my neighborhood and for the first time in my life, I felt scared of a storm. The horrible thing about it was that it went on and on and on for about 20 minutes. It finally abated and I started opening windows because it was getting hot and stuffy inside .. I noticed at the end of my property a large branch had been sheared off .. I went outside to check it out. Thankfully it didn't hit anything. some of my lawn furniture and plants had been knocked over. I went to the greenhouse and opened it back up and noted everything was in place. I saw a bucket just to the left of the greenhouseI knew was empty before all this started and I measured 5 and 1/2 inches of water in it! It was then I looked around me and saw my next door neighbors tree had been snapped in two! I stood there stunned. I went out to the front yard and saw another neighbors car with tree limbs all over it and branches laying everywhere in the street and neighbors yards.

Personally I was extremely lucky since all the damage I had was a sheared limb. We needed rain, but not a weeks worth in 20 minutes!

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