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Hailstones the size of gumballs

Storm rakes the Back Bay. Photo by Drew.Storm rakes the Back Bay. Photo by Drew.

An astonished Government Center worker e-mailed about the hail around 3:30 p.m. To be more exact, he wrote:

HAILSTONES THE SIZE OF GUMBALLS IN GOV'T CENTER!!!

At least one hailstone the size of a golf ball came down on Washington Street in Downtown Crossing - look at the size of that thing at the end of this video.

Elsewhere, reports poured in end-of-days torrents and pea-sized hail from the Fenway to Chinatown.

A state trooper and police dog were in a cruiser hit by lightning on Perimeter Road at Logan Airport. Both are reported OK, however.

A tree came down on Dartmouth Street near Warren in the South End.

Copley Square in the stormGround-eye view of the storm, from the BPL main library. Photo by Penny Cherubino.

Ed. note: No hail here on the Roslindale/Hyde Park frontier, but tons of thunder and lightning.

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Comments

I didn't see hail at Copley, just torrential rain. Some of the tents at the farmers market blew over.

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my office window was continuously pelted with blueberry sized hail stones. It created quite a racket!

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Walked from Newbury to Boylston with an umbrella including a few minutes in the Green Line entrance when a lightning flash/bang hit very close by. My physical therapist said I looked like I had jumped in a lake despite my umbrella and there was definitely gumball sized hail falling. Kind of eery - there was almost nobody on the street - everybody was in the T entrance.

About as bad a thundershower as I've ever seen.

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I know I commented somewhere recently (may have been UHub) that I'd never seen hail in person. I can no longer make that claim. Quite a bit of plinking going on against the windows of 111 Huntington. I also saw lightening hit the Hancock. Not that I could actually see the Hancock at that moment, but the lightening came to a sudden and LOUD stop right in the darkness where the Hancock later reappeared.

Given all the windows I had left open back in Brighton, I was expecting a disaster, but the floors are dry, so I can say with conviction that I, for one, enjoyed watching that storm!

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Then again, this is a town that thinks a large crowd outside Newbury Comics or slight unruliness after a rap show is tantamount to London burning.

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They are building stages. http://bostongreenfest.org/

I thought maybe it was more exploding manholes. Looked out and the sunny day that it was at 2pm had turned evil. Looks like BoA will need to buy new flags. Dime sized hail slamming the windows.

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at Greenfest and papers were flying about City Hall Plaza. Also, some parts of the Plaza were under six inches of water.

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Left Greenfest with my free plant in a Dixie cup, got home, and planted the greenery minutes before the rain.

Also enjoyed the perfect lemonade and iced tea Coolatta from the Govt Center Dunkins (remained slushy throughout).

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SwirlyGrrl - are you referring to the flags in front of our building?

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If you are in the pregnant building, it's the flags on the federal street side. They were whipping around in the wind, and lashing up and down and sideways quite violently.

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It was nuts in Copley for about 20 minutes. Hail, insane winds, lots of flying debris (it was farmer's market day in Copley - look out for falling cabbage).

It's clearing up now though - blue sky and everything...

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And some small pea-sized hail on Allandale Rd.

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. . . almost being hit by lightening and good luck? I've heard that if you are almost hit by lightening and survive- you get good luck for the rest of your life.

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I think I've heard that too, although I also think that, after you narrowly escape being hit by lightning, not much else seems too terrible.

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This really happened. There was a bit of a hailstorm in central Massachusetts while I was hiking up Mount Grace near Northbridge, I believe. My hiking companion was a young woman named Mary (you can see where this is going) so I said: "look, it's Hail, Mary, falling on Grace".

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n/t

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Almost got hit on the sidewalk over ten years ago, but a taxi driving by took the hit instead. One monstrous bit of incredibly bad luck after another, ever since.

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In college, on a camping trip in West Virginia next to a river, the whole campground almost was hit by lightning that struck the river about 100 feet away. Can't speak for the luckiness all of my old friends on that trip who felt the static build before the bolt, but one died hiking about 10 years later.

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Per my post above, I'm heading to 7-11 for a lottery ticket!

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I find it didn't change anything, save my appreciation for Mother Nature's extreme power.

I was trying to get ahold of my husband, who was out on a bike while I was at Salisbury beach with our two then small kids. I had cleared the kids off of the beach ahead of the storm, and they were sleeping once we started driving and the rain came down in buckets. Thinking my husband had the cel phone (it was 1999, folks) I saw a pay phone in the middle of a parking lot, pulled up, and stepped from the car. As I picked up the receiver, every hair on my body stood on end - and I mean EVERY hair. Body electric!

I decided that it would be prudent to retreat to the comfort of my Faraday Cage - the 1987 Volvo. I literally dove into the car, pulling the door shut with my foot as a bolt of lightening took out a tree about 20 yards away.

When I eventually found my husband via phone messages left at home, he was approaching that same parking lot (he'd weathered the storm at a dunks and then headed again for Salisbury). I pulled over, he pulled up, and put the bike in the back.

"Um, honey, while you are over there - could you hang up the phone ..."

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It's a wonder anyone survived.

Boston's capacity for exaggeration knows no limit.

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Where was my hail?

I got drenched biking past Pope John Paul II park, passing the usual winos, 20-something ne'er-do-well fisher folk, and OAPs with giant dogs. Then I cycled down through Milton, Randolph and Canton to suddenly dry roads and blue skies. Finally, coming back into Milton and up Brush Hill into Hyde Park, I caught another downpour.

But where in the name of the goddesses was my hail? Rain is soooo boring.

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I have an interior office, and I could hear it.

Then I went to the window and noticed that it wasn't rain - it was blueberry-sized hail lashing the buildings and sidewalks.

It was nighttime dark, too.

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Lightning and a plane leaving Logan this afternoon, by Mark Garfinkel.

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Chris Devers watched the storm roll in over Allston:

Posted under this Creative Commons license and with a universalhub tag on Flickr.

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The video didn't come out very well, but thanks for posting it all the same :-)

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