Hailstorm Hits Ford Edge Sport in East Tennessee

It doesn’t matter what ways of mass destruction humans create as technological advances permit us to find new ways of annihilating each other. At the end of the day, it’s Mother Nature that’s more powerful than any nuke or a truckload of TNT.
In ancient times, natural disasters were regarded as the product of angry gods wanting to give humans a lesson for their disobedience, but we all know that’s B-crap. Still, Mother Nature has a great selection of weapons of mass destruction, including hail.

The natural disaster we’re referring to as a hailstorm was (and still is) a hazard to farmers’ crops, livestock, glass-roofed structures and airplanes if the hailstone is bigger than 0.5 inches (13 mm) in diameter. But us petrolheads do one thing first and foremost when the skies are getting angry - searching for a sheltered parking lot to protect the windows, paint job.

Not only that, but the most massive of hailstones have been known to cause fatal head trauma.

It was 2010 in Vivian, South Dakota, when the heaviest hailstone of them all was discovered. It tipped the scales at a gargantuan 1.93 pounds (0.88 kilograms). But our story isn’t about mega stones or people getting hit by it. It's about more moderate hailstorms and the little to no damage they inflict on our cars.

Two days ago, the people of East Tennessee were enjoying a nice, sunny day, when all of the sudden hailstone as big as 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) in diameter got the best of Gatlinburg and surrounding communities. In some place, the hail hit so hard that the ground looked like it snowed.

Before the rainbows appeared on the sky, people got to post pics of Mammatus clouds and the hailstones hitting everything in sight, from potted plants to a Ford SUV like the one in the adjacent video. Pop-up storms are a headache for all of us, with the hail piling up on the Ford Edge standing as a case in point.