Friday, August 16, 2019

Where's Al Gore? Whopping 18 inches of hail accumulates in parts of Michigan

Whopping 18 inches of hail accumulates in parts of Michigan

By Amanda Schmidt, AccuWeather staff writer

After record-breaking hailstones fell from the skies over Coloradoearlier this week, a powerful thunderstorm unleashed significant amounts of hail in Michigan on Wednesday. In this case, it was the accumulation of hail, not the mass of individual stones, that captured onlookers' attention.

In some places, as much as 18 inches of hail accumulated.

Large piles of ice may be one of the last things people might expect to see on the ground in mid-August. But this is exactly what some residents across southern portions of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, found outside their homes on Wednesday.

A severe thunderstorm dumped dime- to ping-pong-ball-sized hail across southern portions of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on Aug. 14. The slow speed at which the storm moved through the area -- just 15 mph -- is what caused the unusually large hail accumulation.

AccuWeather Reporter Blake Naftel was on the ground in the region. He was able to capture the hail accumulation that remained on the ground in Vicksburg, Michigan, Wednesday afternoon into the early evening. Drifts measured nearly 18 inches in some spots, Naftel reported.

“We were working at the high school in the concession stands. It started to rain and then that rain quickly turned to what appeared to be a snowstorm of ice,” Josh Baird told AccuWeather of the hail that fell in Vicksburg, Michigan, on Wednesday.

Baird marveled as he stood in front of what appeared to be large piles of snow on the ground.

“It looked like popcorn just bouncing off of the ground,” Baird added.

Hail accumulation remained on the ground in Vicksburg, Michigan, with drifts measuring nearly 18 inches in some spots early Wednesday evening, Aug. 14, 2019. (AccuWeather/ Blake Naftel)

Naftel reports that several soy and corn crops were damaged by the onslaught of hail.

Severe storms moved over the state on Wednesday, and it appears that the piles of hail resulted from a "one-off thunderstorm that got particularly feisty," AccuWeather Meteorologist Jake Sojda said.

This storm brought mainly pea- and marble-sized hail, which does not meet the criteria for severe hail--hail that is 1 inch or greater.

"It was the amount of hail that fell that made it so noteworthy. However, if we are looking for accumulating hail like that, it typically is smaller hail that is falling," Sojda said.

This recent storm brought not only hail, but also heavy downpours and wind gusts up to 60 mph.

Even if a more significant threat of severe thunderstorms is not anticipated, any thunderstorm can grow strong quickly if localized conditions are adequate. Ideal conditions helped brew the storm that formed south of Kalamazoo.

Around the Great Lakes, lake breeze boundaries can also aid in the formation of thunderstorms, as well as help to make an otherwise ordinary thunderstorm stronger. This effect likely played a role in the severity of the recent storm that hit the south side of Kalamazoo.

"Typically, the larger the hail, the more intense the storm is. This is because the larger the hailstone, the faster the air needs to be rising into the storm to keep it high up in the cloud where it can keep growing. When you have enough energy to get the air rising fast enough to make large hail, you almost always have strong winds at the surface as well and sometimes can form tornadoes," Sojda explained.

Tornadoes tend to be fickle, and just because a storm strong enough to produce giant hail, this doesn’t guarantee that a tornado is also coming.

When large hail falls, it is recommended to hide inside a well-constructed building. Severe hail will, at the very least, can be painful to be hit by, as it can be traveling at more 100 mph before it hits the ground.

"Any strikes to the head can cause more serious injuries or even death, with the likelihood of serious injury or death increasing with the size of the hail, although typically for it to be deadly one would have to be hit in the head. Most other areas on the body will get a nasty bruise, but it always depends from case to case," Sojda said.

Not only is large hail a potential human threat, it can also have a large economic impact, especially on vehicles. Severe hail can dent cars and break windows, especially if it is accompanied by strong winds.

"Hail can also damage crops, although luckily it’s usually pretty localized, so while it may ruin some fields, it usually won’t ruin an entire crop," Sojda said. "Hail damage costs insurance companies billions of dollars in claims every year." Indeed, the images sent back from Michigan by Naftel showed broken soy and corn plants that were beaten to the ground.

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Saul Alinsky's
Rules for Radicals

(or understanding current Democratic tactics)

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.

Rule 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag.

Rule 8: Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period.

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.

Rule 10: Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Rule 11: If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

Rule 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

Communist Manifesto 10 Planks

10 Conditions For Transition To Communism

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.