June 30 was a red-letter day in and around the city of Bozeman. At least two different storms blasted the area with hail. The first hit the Gough neighborhood with golf ball-size hail, something I hadn’t seen in 36 years of living here.
I heard the first hailstone hit the roof and dashed to look out the back door calling to Bob, “Big hail, big hail!” He joined me and we watched as our irises were destroyed, the perennials beaten down, lupine tattered, grapes beaten off their supports, and our newly thinned vegetable garden shredded (see photos top left and bottom right). We had several window screens damaged, Bob’s windshield was cracked and hood dented, and every vent on our travel trailer roof was smashed.
I told Bob I completely expected a second wave of hail and dashed out to move his truck closer to the east side of our house (the storm came from the west) and to take photos of our sad-looking yard. (I’m sure I gave the neighbors a laugh in my shorts, tank top and knee-high rubber boots.) While we had another small pelting of pea-size hail, we went to bed thinking we had had the worst possible weather experience. It was only when we read the paper in the morning that we learned that downtown Bozeman and the Montana State University campus had received baseball-size hail during a second storm and there was much damage to homes and businesses.
As I drove through town and saw the broken windows I was immediately thankful. What happened to us was minor compared to what happened to these people. We are looking forward to watching our yard and garden recover.
—Cheryl Moore-Gough
The storm that rolled through Gallatin Valley on July 1 knocked out hundreds of windows around the city, tore paint off walls, punched holes in vinyl siding, dented vehicles and blew out their windows. Many looked like new pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg had been throwing fastballs at them. Farmers in the Four Corners area, just a week away from their first cutting of hay, lost the crop. Home gardens took a hit, too, of course, but looking at the bigger picture, our losses pale.
Joseph Shaw, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that severe hailstorms often have a green tint, and that when such color is observed, "the storm is probably less than 10 minutes away."
The photo at top right is of Marjorie Fowlkes holding some of the hail stones she collected in her yard and which her husband, Charless, plans to serve in cocktails.
—Dan Spurr
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