After John's Retirement Party, Barry and I stopped for dinner, and then I drove back into the city to drop Barry at home and then drove home. When I got off the Northwest Tollway, I could see this huge cloud wall coming toward us - dark menacing. The winds were picking up. There was lightning everywhere, and a lot of it was strikes to the ground... close to where I was driving.

About 2 miles from the house, the skies opened. The rain was a deluge. Traffic crawled because we couldn't see in front of us... windshield wipers TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE as they wouldn't get rid of the rain fast enough. We couldn't see the lane markers for the rain, the standing water, the darkness and the headlights.

The deafening roar of the rain hitting steel in the car got LOUDER as I pulled into the neighborhood. I got the car into the garage as quickly as possible.

I jumped out to see HAIL coming into the garage...

Hail everywhere. hail was starting to coat the driveway.. so intense and so dangerous,

It didn't last long, but the coating of hail on the concrete lingered....

Worst micro-storm of the season....