While I knew there was no tornado, tonight’s hail storm still impressed me. The white wall coming in off the marsh was cinematic, but the real star came seconds later when the hail arrived.

I could tell right away that the chunks were big, and they looked like broken snowballs bouncing into the windows. It made me think about density, and how if this hail was made from rock, every window in my house would be broken.

It lasted a good 10 minutes, so we waited, listened, and suddenly it stopped. Out I went with a bucket for the kids, which is now in our freezer. Cooper ate some, and said it tasted like water.

This was big hail…maybe the biggest I’d seen since I was a kid. It was easy to spot actual golfball-sized hail, but it was melting fast.

Most of the big pieces had a distinct cloudy ball in the middle, about the size of a raisin, which was surrounded by thick, clear ice. This pattern was enhanced as they melted, and they began to look like sliced kiwi.

Here are some pics of the aftermath…

Stars, moon, sun, and jets. Palm tree, cypress, pine, and oak.

I have terrible equipment for capturing celestial phenomenon (a 17-40mm), but my not-so-inner geek always pulls me out into the yard. I’ve caught meteors, rainbows, and even the northern lights (rare for SC), and tonight I got two more — a lunar eclipse and a moonbow — only 90 minutes apart.

It was pretty cloudy in Mt. P, so I quickly snapped the moonbow shot at about 7:45 thinking that was that. I caught brief glimpses of the eclipse, and then at 9:15 there was a relatively clear patch. I took a few shots with my wide angle gear, but focusing was nearly impossible. Still, the moment was captured, and along with the moonbow record a wild 90 minutes up there.

I hope all you late risers didn’t miss the show this morning! Commuting over the bridges providing amazing views of the thick layer of fog that had settled over the rivers and marshes. I crossed the Wando bridge around 8 a.m. this morning, and snapped two quick shots.

The first one is looking Southwest down the Wando, towards the Ravenel Bridge. From left to right you can see the Channel 2 broadcast tower, both towers of the bridge, the cranes from the downtown port, and finally a couple of the MUSC buildings on the far right.

This second shot is looking Northeast up the Wando, and seeing nothing but white. The fog seemed to be way thicker up that way, and it reminded my of flying over cloud cover - nothing was penetrating it.