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Hailstorm Pummels Daytona
By LYDA LONGA
Staff Writer
May 05, 2005
DAYTONA BEACH -- For about a minute Wednesday morning, Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University officials thought they were reliving Hurricane
Charley.
The sudden onslaught of hail that pelted the Daytona Beach area just
before 9 a.m. when the skies opened up did about as much damage on
Riddle's training airplanes as Charley did last fall, said ERAU
spokesman Jim Hampton.
"And it all took about a minute," Hampton said. "We had pingpong
ball-sized hail. It also damaged most of the cars in our parking lot."
A strong cell of thunderstorms that swept through the area was blamed
for up to 3 inches of hail along the U.S. 92 corridor, damaging planes,
automobiles and gardens and littering roadsides with the small icy
pebbles. Later in the day, tornado warnings were posted in Volusia
County as heavy thunderstorms moved through the area.
The weather systems which are mostly responsible for creating hail also
included powerful updrafts, said meteorologist Bob Wimmer of the
National Weather Service in Melbourne.
N-J/Jim Tiller
A Votran bus heads south on Beach Street in Daytona Beach as a hailstorm
pelts the area Wednesday morning. A strong thunderstorm cell dumped
about 3 inches of hail on the area, most of it along U.S. 92 between
Daytona Beach and DeLand.
Because of the persistent updrafts in the center of the storms, the hail
showers lasted up to two minutes in certain areas, Wimmer said.
"We received reports that the hail was golf ball-size and mostly in the
area of U.S. 92 between DeLand and Daytona Beach," Wimmer said. "There
was about 3 inches of hail in the grass off of U.S. 92 in certain
sections of the highway."
Hail was also reported in Leesburg and several other areas north of
Interstate 4, Wimmer said.
While hail does not accompany every thunderstorm, it may occur,
especially in the spring, when storms form in an entire region, Wimmer
said.
Wednesday's messy weather originated from a moist, unstable atmosphere
and strong currents of air moving at 25,000 feet, Wimmer said. An upward
motion in the atmosphere from southwest to northeast was also fueling a
warm front.
The early afternoon hours brought tornado warnings for the southeastern
part of Volusia County which included Ponce Inlet, New Smyrna Beach and
Port Orange.
Daytona Beach received 3.33 inches of rain Wednesday, a record for the
day, said John Pendergrast of the National Weather Service in Melbourne.
Chances of rain are expected to be about 60 percent today and about 20
percent Friday, Wimmer said.
"The weekend is actually looking good," he said.
But not so at ERAU, where 38 of the 40 single-engine Cessna 172 planes
lost skylights, Hampton said. At least 10 twin-engine aircraft were
damaged as well, sustaining dings and dents from the hail.
"We have no exact estimate on the damage, but its going to be in the
thousands," Hampton said. "Two of the single-engine planes weren't
damaged because one was in the air and the other was in a hangar."
Mechanics at the college told Hampton that each single-engine plane
damaged in the storm would require eight hours of repairs.
Phoenix East Aviation, a flight school near ERAU on Pearl Harbor Drive,
also got its share of hail.
The school closed early Wednesday afternoon after several of its 25
training planes were dented and at least two sustained broken windows
from the hail, said staff member Chris McGrath.
For some auto owners, the onslaught of hail left dimpled car finishes.
State Farm received about 60 hail-damage claims Wednesday in the Daytona
Beach area, mostly from motorists, while Progressive Insurance reported
37 claims, and Allstate tallied "several dozen," company officials
reported. State Farm also had about 130 other hail claims come in from
other parts of the state.
Motorists who encounter hail should try to get their vehicles under
cover or at least to the shelter of an overpass, if one is nearby, said
AAA spokesman Matt Nasworthy.
"However, they should worry more about protecting themselves than
protecting their vehicles," Nasworthy said. It's better to pull over and
let the vehicle take a pounding than to speed up in an effort to outrace
the storm, he said.
At a house a few blocks east of the flight schools, on Aleatha Drive,
Jean Adam was assessing the damage left behind in her yard. While Adam's
losses were not as colossal, they were painful just the same.
"Most of my flowers were beaten down," Adam said. "All my gazing balls
were busted and they're in hundreds of pieces all over the flower beds.
"I'm from Missouri and I'm used to tornadoes and hail. I never expected
to see anything like this in Florida," Adam said.
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