A massive ice ball from the sky crashes through a roof and reminds us that Nature is still in charge
Dan Brawner
August 01, 2007
At 5:30 a.m., on July 26, as Jan Kenkel of Dubuque, Iowa was getting ready for work, a 50-pound chunk of ice whizzed through the twilight sky and punched a huge hole in her kitchen roof.
It sounded like a bomb!” the 78-year-old woman told the Associated Press.
The basketball-sized blob of ice blasted through overhanging trees and left a pile of wood splinters, shingles and insulation on the kitchen floor. It’s probably just as well Kenkel had not yet had her morning coffee. As it was, she said she “jumped a foot” when the ice ball landed in front of her. Kenkel shook her head, dutifully stuck the thing in the freezer and called her insurance adjuster.
Last January, a 200-pound chunk of ice streaked through the clear Florida sky and landed in the back seat of a really nice red Ford Mustang. The car was totaled and when a local television station tried to interview the Hillsborough County owner, he said he didn’t want to talk about it.
On June 26, 1985, in Hartford, Conn., a 1,500-pound slab of ice, six feet long and eight inches thick flattened a picket fence. The ground shook with the impact. A 13-year-old boy and his friend were standing 10 feet away when it happened.
Meteorologists speculate that these chunks of ice form naturally like hail or fall off airplanes as they prepare to land. But nobody really knows where the stuff comes from. There you are, minding your own business when something comes down on you from out of the sky like Judgement Day. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
With temperatures in the 90's in the Midwest this week, I could use a nice chunk of ice. But no. All I get are those metallic green Japanese beetles that devour all the green parts of a leaf and leave just the creepy stem skeleton behind. It’s like they’re stealing the little chlorophyl souls of my rose bushes and fruit trees. But they eat the weeds too, so I suppose it’s fair.
Yesterday, an adult doe suddenly appeared in the driveway about lunch time, walked calmly into my yard and proceeded to eat apples off my tree. There was something so majestic and inevitable about it, I could only watch with fascination as it chomped every ripe apple it could find and strolled away.
It could be worse. This is the season for tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, floods and drought. And all our Doppler-radar-early-warning-Star-Wars-missile-security-blanket technology is just whistling in the dark. When our time is up, it’s up. One day there might be a blinding flash overhead as some gigantic thing lands on my garage like an unabridged dictionary on a Rice Krispie. I only hope it will be a piece of Skylab. I could sure use the money. And it would save me from cleaning out the garage.
It sounded like a bomb!” the 78-year-old woman told the Associated Press.
The basketball-sized blob of ice blasted through overhanging trees and left a pile of wood splinters, shingles and insulation on the kitchen floor. It’s probably just as well Kenkel had not yet had her morning coffee. As it was, she said she “jumped a foot” when the ice ball landed in front of her. Kenkel shook her head, dutifully stuck the thing in the freezer and called her insurance adjuster.
Last January, a 200-pound chunk of ice streaked through the clear Florida sky and landed in the back seat of a really nice red Ford Mustang. The car was totaled and when a local television station tried to interview the Hillsborough County owner, he said he didn’t want to talk about it.
On June 26, 1985, in Hartford, Conn., a 1,500-pound slab of ice, six feet long and eight inches thick flattened a picket fence. The ground shook with the impact. A 13-year-old boy and his friend were standing 10 feet away when it happened.
Meteorologists speculate that these chunks of ice form naturally like hail or fall off airplanes as they prepare to land. But nobody really knows where the stuff comes from. There you are, minding your own business when something comes down on you from out of the sky like Judgement Day. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
With temperatures in the 90's in the Midwest this week, I could use a nice chunk of ice. But no. All I get are those metallic green Japanese beetles that devour all the green parts of a leaf and leave just the creepy stem skeleton behind. It’s like they’re stealing the little chlorophyl souls of my rose bushes and fruit trees. But they eat the weeds too, so I suppose it’s fair.
Yesterday, an adult doe suddenly appeared in the driveway about lunch time, walked calmly into my yard and proceeded to eat apples off my tree. There was something so majestic and inevitable about it, I could only watch with fascination as it chomped every ripe apple it could find and strolled away.
It could be worse. This is the season for tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, floods and drought. And all our Doppler-radar-early-warning-Star-Wars-missile-security-blanket technology is just whistling in the dark. When our time is up, it’s up. One day there might be a blinding flash overhead as some gigantic thing lands on my garage like an unabridged dictionary on a Rice Krispie. I only hope it will be a piece of Skylab. I could sure use the money. And it would save me from cleaning out the garage.
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