In our back yard we have a lilac which was given to us as a wedding present. It has taken a long time to mature but has produced a nice number of blossoms for the past few years. At first, we thought that we had a weak plant, because it took forever to show any noticeable amount of growth. It is often the case with trees, here, that they spend the first few years growing an adequate root structure and then suddenly take off with top growth. We were more than reasonably patient with this lilac, but it still disappointed us for about ten years. Its continued presence at the yard edge had more to do with our distraction than our desire to keep it.
Fortunately for the lilac, one summer day we looked over and saw it was in bloom. At that point, inertia brought it more time. After a significant trimming to bring it back into aesthetic proportions, it has improved its blossoming a bit each year. We are careful about pruning it, because the blossoms only appear on second-season limbs. It can take years for a lilac to recover from an ill-chosen cut.
We had another dose of hail, today. It was an intense downpour of rain accompanied by a brief shower of 1/4” hail. The hail was shaped more like marshmallows than spheres, which seems often to be the case.
During the summer, in the Interior of Alaska, we are prone to afternoon thundershowers. The long days allow for a decent build-up of warm air at the ground level. At around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, the density difference between the warm and cold air masses reaches a critical level and the warm air rises. Adiabatic cooling reduces the temperature and the moisture that was lifted with the warm air condenses into rain for a brief shower. Sometimes there is enough updraft for the water droplets to make multiple passes through the colder upper air layers and freeze into hail. The biggest hail I have seen here was 3/4” in diameter.
Cumulus clouds are a sure sign that summer is here. We don’t get these clouds at any other time of year because there isn’t enough temperature difference for the uplift required for their formation.
This article will cause me to be more observant when hail showers arrive here in upstate New York. I can’t say the shapes are other than random blobs.
Sleuthing to be done!