Texas: Severe thunderstorm season

The Panhandle area of Texas is experiencing what is known as the severe weather season. Fast (and slow) moving thunderstorms, with wind gusts up to 70 mph, and pockets of hail. Monday’s storm included golf ball to baseball sized hail, but we were lucky. That hail fell on the eastern side of Amarillo, and we live on the far western edge of Amarillo. Most of the time, living on the west side has prevented us from getting too much of the severe effects. Until Tuesday afternoon.

The forecast

The initial forecast in the morning said that a thunderstorm would roll through around 2 p.m. During the day, we checked the radar and forecast, and it seemed like the storm did what it normally does: splits to southern and northern tracks, missing the middle where the RV park is located.

Around 5 p.m., we checked the radar again, and it was apparent that we were not going to be missed this time, and this storm was forecast for half-quarter sized hail.

By 5:30, the storm had arrived, raining in sheets and spitting little pea-sized hail onto our RV and the ground. The video shows the rain and hail, as well as what they sounded like from inside the RV. We are super grateful the hail wasn’t any larger – it was noisy enough even when it was small.

The heavy rain and hail petered out after about 30 minutes, and steady rain continued to fall. It finally stopped around 8 p.m. That’s when we discovered we had a tiny issue.

The issue

When I went to close the front blind/curtain for the night, I discovered water on the dash. I looked up above the collection of water, and found we had water coming in from above. Bob promptly took care of the inside, but we need to check the roof when it is dry. The two spots he sealed are where the above windshield lights are on the RV exterior.

We needed to take care of the issue immediately, as this is the area in our RV where we have electrical items stored. The black item on the right edge is our WeBoost cell signal booster. Not something we want ruined by water intrusion issues.  🙂