I had planned to discuss air pressure with the kids today for the next step in our weather unit, but as it turned out the weather, or should I say our Great Creator, had other ideas.

As we prepared for our study, mom grabbing her notes and book, kids grabbing their weather journals, colored pencils and clipboards -- a rather foreign sight emerged from the window.

The sky became dark and ominous; out of no where a downpour, or ‘cloudburst,’ as we learned today, overtook the skies.  I told the kids, ‘This is what mom enjoys, a peaceful thunderstorm’ – can you call a thunderstorm peaceful? I don’t know but I like them! It’s relaxing.

We rushed outside as the sound of hail beat against the glass windows --- the hail, though not very big, began to cover my beloved’s flower garden.

Then my son, Kaden, notices a bag of garbage floating down our street. Its trash day and they hadn’t been by to collect it; the street was so flooded it picked that bag up and carried it away. I know we should have probably run out to get it, but we had such a great time watching the swift water carry it away. Eventually it did come to a stop – at another trash can sitting in the road. It was so flooded cars were parking on the side of the road to wait out the storm – what a sight, a crazy mother and her brood giggling, pointing at trash and playing in the rain!!!

 All precipitation starts out as snow, as it travels through the layers of atmosphere, ( learned earlier this week ) the snow turns to rain b/c of the changes in the layers temperature. But that drop continues to move, twisting about inside the cloud with the air current; when it goes upward it hits freezing temps and turns to ice. It bounces around some more like a ball, continually freezing and thawing, building layers of ice. Eventually the ball becomes heavy enough to fall……..that is hail!

Here is Kaden’s drawing of how hail is formed.

So b/c of our Creator’s surprise rain/hail storm, one that lasted much longer than the usual couple minutes, we moved on to rain and hail today.

It was a delightful day!