Summer Hail Damage Around Holyoke

[PairOfLabs]

While waiting for me to slip/slide my way from Yuma up to Holyoke on Saturday morning, Jason was talking to a Holyoke area farmer. He advised us to hunt north of Hwy 6 as there had been a nasty hail storm in the early summer that hammered the young birds south of the highway. Do any of you know any more about that storm--perhaps how big of any area it affected? I remember reading a DOW report that said there were some isolated hail storms but the article didn't pinpoint them.

Thanks for any advice.
Tom

 

[cedahm]

I think the DOW description is right-on - it was pretty isolated. From my admittedly small sample of 1 day so far -

The grass in my #1 go-to WIA field (South of US6) was mostly flattened/beaten down - I assumed from from the hail (and talking to the landowner confirmed they had a doozy of a hailstorm) - and not a bird in sight there or on the private near it. Just 5 miles away (same latitude) - the next field was waist high, undamaged, and held a good bunch of birds.

I don't think you should take it as a sweeping condemnation of the whole county south of the highway, but some of those fields got hit pretty hard by the hail. Pretty easy to see within a couple seconds of walking in, if my 'honey hole' was an indication, as the grass will be flattened and matted over large areas.