# Caught in a hail storm



## Drewboy (Mar 18, 2008)

After relocating from Ardrossan(facing east, a windward shore) to Wallaroo,( facing west, a lee shore) chasing better conditions, our group of 5 had a fantastic couple of hours on the water, until......
Out of nowhere it seemed, a very viscous and fast-moving hail storm came upon us over the land from the east.
What threw me was that the wind had changed direction 180 degrees half an hour before and was now coming from the west.
Must have been wind created by the cold within the front. And accordingly, very local.
It was this wind, coming from the opposite direction of the black cloud to our east that gave us a false sense of security.
"That black cloud isn't coming our way...wait on... yes it is."

What an experience....within moments, being pelted with ice whilst lightening was crackling and crashing overhead, holding 2 graphite rods (very low) as I was peddling towards an invisible shore.
To say the heart was pounding hard would be an understatement.
My ears were stinging from the hail.

Visions of one of the Roadrunner movies came to mind...."oh well", I thought..."a lightening bolt and a puff of smoke. It'll probably be very quick and painless".
Hang on I thought... I want to become a grandfather one day. Pour on the coals.

I did however feel a little bit safer for the knowledge that I was not the tallest vessel on the water. about a dozen yachts were not far away.

I have never been in a storm like it, let alone being in a kayak to really cop it.
Upon consideration, had the hailstones been any bigger, I would have taken my buoyancy vest off and held it over my head for better protection.

At 5.15am that morning, when setting off for the day, there was no bad weather alert, however, the various forecasters had been getting it wrong all week. Maybe we should have guessed from that that weird stuff might happen.
After drying off, the 5 of us, Solatree, Olddood, Bajstarbd, MikeG and myself went off to count our blessings over some much needed coffee.

Glad I wasn't in a tinny.

The 3 points I reckon that are important here are 
1. See a black cloud....head in regardless of wind direction.
2. Hold your rods low... especially graphite ones.
3. have something ready to protect your head and body, if hail the size of golf/cricket balls is imminent.






From Wallarooyak
"hey guys that was one big storm. i have never seen one like it. i was at the wallaroo deli when it hit. next time u are comming over give me a call if you need any info give me a call at wallaroo deli and i will help if i can either accom or weather reports. i fell your pain for being out there in it. unfortunatly lots of homes and buisness were damaged in wallaroo including my own shop(min damage) and the complete angler tackle shop(major damage i think he will be having a flood sale soon) in the main street. i think about 70% of the shops were damaged including the hospital (major damage) from 30 minutes of rain and hail we had 2 inches.most of which came through the gyprock. well i hope u will come back soon but leave the bad weather behind once again if you need any help let me know.

cheers guys
david
wallarooyak
wallaroo deli"


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## bajstarbrd (Nov 8, 2009)

If you see something like this comming towards you








You know it's going to get nasty. There was this sort of cloud formation infront of the thunderstorm we expirenced on Sunday. It's known as an outflow boundary, also known as a gust front or arc cloud, is the leading edge of gusty, cooler surface winds from thunderstorm downdrafts; sometimes associated with a shelf cloud or roll cloud (wikipedia).


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## OldDood (Nov 6, 2008)

Just a word of warning from my electrical experience. 
I obviously can not personally vouch for the accuracy of the following but these are the stastistics that Electrial Engineers use when trying to lightning protect a radio tower installation and I believe them to be correct.
Lightning will most likely strike the tallest object in the immediate area regardless of what the object is made of. 
You are a sitting duck when sitting on the ocean. 
All materials will conduct at the voltages required to create lightning. 
Many thousands of amps will flow during a lightning strike. 
It only requires 30 thousandth of an amp to kill you!!
Lightning strikes can have a core temperature of three times the temperature of the sun.
*You will not survive a direct lightning strike.
To sum up if you have any doubt that a thunder storm is imminent find shelter immediately! *
Regards,
Mark


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## Drewboy (Mar 18, 2008)

bajstarbrd said:


> You know it's going to get nasty. There was this sort of cloud formation infront of the thunderstorm we expirenced on Sunday. It's known as an outflow boundary, also known as a gust front or arc cloud, is the leading edge of gusty, cooler surface winds from thunderstorm downdrafts; sometimes associated with a shelf cloud or roll cloud (wikipedia).


I have seen 2 of these in years gone by, and in each case , within 8-10 hours all hell broke loose.... light aircraft turned upside down... roofs lifted off grandstands etc.


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## Muzakeral (Sep 19, 2008)

ouch...I can recall a black westerly at Port Stephens...I recall retrieving a boat our hands and knees from the amount of lighting activity...very scary.....!


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## dru (Dec 13, 2008)

That outflow boundary thing - saw one only once - at the UK National Skydiving Championships outside Lincoln. Cant recall if it was 2005 or 2006. The last (skydive drop) load all survived - most landed nearly 10 miles away, the plane only just got down in front of the front. One crazy dude flew his canopy (parachute) through it and lived to tell the tale. Crazy bastard. So when skydiving in hail, rotate onto your back in free fall, let you parachute rig take the punishment (hitting hail at 120 mph doesnt just hurt, it is physically damaging). Of course you have to roll back before deploying the parachute. Under canopy fly into the wind, but on heavy brakes - the idea is to float at the same speed as the wind, the only hail you get is falling from above, not being flown in to.

Lightning strikes in small aircraft is no fun either. Dont understand the science behind how they survive.

Hit a nasty storm in a sailing dinghy (International 420)in Moreton Bay (racing out of RQ) as a teenager. We simply surrendered, rolled the boat over, let the mast dig into the mud (Moreton is shallow) and let the hull protect us. Underneath we simply hung on till it was over. I'd give that another shot in a yak if I got caught in bad hail, roll over and sit underneath, poking my head out occassionally for fresh breathe.

Sounds like an unpleasant day boys - glad you got through!


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## Slazmo (Oct 18, 2010)

Hey guys,

Sorry for the grave dig but I got a similar story with the Gold Coast 'Indy' weekends... Every year during Indy (Street car race) we are "GUARANTEED" either heavy rain, generally nasty storm followed by hail, herpe's or hysteria...

Last year we were out in a Tinny, and it started out as a nice day and so forth... We usually just trolled the Gold Coast Broadwater and so forth. We had this niggeling in our minds that there would be trouble this day as it started out too perfect for everything to go right... Lucking my mate listened to me to park under a smaller more shady tree than the larger one he wanted to park under.

Anyhow about 3 hours into the fish, we had a front crawl up (South to North) and I spotted it as after 25 years on the Goldy nothing passes me by. We quickly moved up Soverign Island and asked a tinny full of teenager girls that were drenched by the rain (they had come up from the Nerang Waterway - and had been hit by the storm)... We judged the storms speed and quickly hid under a bridge on Soverigne Island.

The first amount of the storm saw us get hit by a massive cold front of air and some of the loudest cracks of thunder that still to this day give me shivvers as they were so close and being in a tinny with carbon rods and the outboard running - i though that this would be a nasty ride... Shortly after that, I noticed pea sized balls of hail and I didnt want to scare my mate with his car out in the open, he noticed shortly after that, after it seemed to have snowed as it got heavier and worse, with larger hail stones about the size of golf balls that hit the water... I still remember the look on his face - utter despiration with his car being smashed to pieces... I did honestly feel sorry for him...

After about 5 mins of batteling with the current and wind and horizontal wild wind as we didnt have a rope or anchor as we were trolling exclusivly that day we tried hugging the pileons of the bridge to stay in one spot also... we left and took a run as the hail started to ease up. In the 5 mins it took to get back to Paradise Point I think there was about 6 inches of water in the boat and it was freezing!!! We went ashore and met 3 others that were letting the water out and they all had similar tales... We left with the boat emptied and went back to his car.

The Swift was covered with about 4 inches of shredded tree leaves and other assorted rubbish, but after going home and washing it down we only found 1 of the tinyiest dings in the roof that could have possibly been a stone from the highway - Luckily he parked under the tree I said... So we were lucky and so was me mate! We still talk about it and have a small contingency plan if we are to get caught in something like that again...

Now there are photo's below of the system coming towards us and one when it left.

Another issue is that I find myself questioning is that, with a kayak (take my Viking Tempo) - I'll be carrying 2 carbon rods, a Minn Kota with a carbon composite shaft, 80amp battery and a fair amount of metal in that rear transom. Now when the minn kota's on, it would be bleeding some residual charge and possibly asking for a strike??? :shock:

Now will I fare the same, given the same situation??? What have others done / planned if they are / get caught in something like that?


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## OldDood (Nov 6, 2008)

Hi slazmo,
Great photos and stories.
If you get caught in a violent electrical storm in the Yak just position your body in the lightning defence position.
As you will invariably be the tallest object in the area you are very vulnerable to a direct hit.
For those of you that do not know how to do this, follow this procedure carefully.
1/.Bend forward from the waist as far as you possibly can.
2/. Place your head firmly between your knees.
3/.Stay in this position until you hear the sizzling sound that proceeds a lightning strike.
4/.Then?---

5/. Kiss your *rse goodbye. :lol: :lol: 

Regards,
Mark.


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## Slazmo (Oct 18, 2010)

ha ha I was waiting for that...

Nah supposidly you can feel the ground feed well before a strike, most people that are struck say that their hair near stands on end, from what they know about lightening there is always some sort of electrical static ground feed... High speed photographs show that there is litterally lightening coming from the ground to meet the lightening from the air, and sometimes quiet a few of these feeds...

I guess if your on the water with a kayak, carbon rods and a fair bit of metal...

Step 4 & 5 are the way to go... :lol:


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## KeyLargo1 (Dec 2, 2009)

I got caught 1km away from the car whilst supervising an excavator near Wollongong about 3 years ago. We were in a paddock with the excavator being the tallest object. What was amazing was the lightning that was hitting everything around us BEFORE the rain/hail hit. Ineveitably the excavator got hit but the operator was alright. I have never moved so quickly with a 20kg esky of samples in my hand. The hair was standing up on my back, seriously freaky. It then took 2hours to get back to Sydney through the storm, I had a hire car which was trashed from the hail (work hired thankfully).

Plenty of times I have had to leave a beach fishing session with YFW/tailor/sambos seriously on the bite as a front screamed up the coast.


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