[zenjenn]

Should I be worried? Coming from California, I've never in my life seen words like "damaging wind" and "large hailstones" in weather predictions! I have yet to get a weather radio and my husband's brand new car is parked outside (no carports in our apt complex). How big ARE "large hailstones" anyways?

[Threestep]

No reason to get excited. Bad weather is supposed to move in. We had high winds last night and some rain.

The car is insured?

[rnc76]

I don't know if there is a definition of "large" hailstones, but they can range anywhere from pea to baseball size (even larger in freak storms). Back in my hometown we had baseball sized hail come through about 10 years ago. The damage was amazing. Punched holes straight through roofs and car windows. That is extremely rare, but it happens. I'm not trying to scare you. Golf ball size is about as large as they typically get. They will still dent your car up pretty bad. I would move your car away from any trees. You are more likely to have a large branch fall on it than a bad hail storm dent it up.

The storms here can be pretty intense, especially for a newcomer. I wouldn't worry too much, just keep your TV on and watch the track of the storms. They have really good weather technology around here.

[Keeper]

You can get a weather radio at Southern Market and WalMart for $30.00.. Not hard to program, I did mine and my daughter's radio. RadioShak may have them too but don't pay over $30.00 for one.
I know WAFF streams online and you can chat with a weather guy/girl.

[Socal2Bham]

Even after living in St. Louis for 3 years and here for nearly 2 now, I still panic some when storms come in.

The hailstones don't have to be "large" to do damage. Not a month after I got my new car in St. Louis a hailstorm came through (pea size) and did a lot of damage to my car. It was the first hailstorm I had ever seen.

For those who may not understand her concern, we don't have "weather" in socal, with the exception of the rare el nino. The last summer I lived in Pasadena there was actually lightening one night. You should have seen the local news. They were interviewing people on the street to discuss the lightening. It was hilarious "there was this light in the sky, it was this big flash and bright!" LOL

The storms are kind of exciting but still freak me out.

[Bravo35223]

Zenn.....first, hail is very common in the midwest...Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas etc. Fairly rare here....don't know why!

Next, this is your first chance to sit by the TV for awhile and see how they cover a legitimate storm...if they do not interupt regular programming, then it will be just a 'rainmaker' with nothing to be worried about....

[zenjenn]

The car is "sort of " insured. Hasn't gone through yet but our insurance on our other car insures any new car bought for 30 days. I'm not sure how good they are about paying off claims on vehicles in that category.

Even still, who wants their brand new car all dented up! I have never seen bigger than pea-sized hail in California, and even that I could count the instances on one hand probably.

Actually not to sound insane but I think it's all kind of fun. Weather is so boring in Southern California.

[Threestep]

Zenjen the "sort of" would have me considerably more excited then potential bad weather. Have you at least notified the insurance company about your new location?

[Bravo35223]

ZJ:

My house has no garage, so my vehicles sit out in the weather....

In the past 6 years since I've lived there, we've had the remnants of Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Katrina come through. In both storms we had sustained winds of about 45 mph and gusts to 60....

Neither car suffered any damage. Once again, hail is rare here. The biggest concern you would have RE: car damage would be from a tree limb falling on them....

[Rick in Dixie]

The weather this evening may not be as bad as they first predicted, the system is lifting off the North East and we have already gotten a good bit of rain, so the day time heating will be at a minimum , therefor reducing the likelyhood of very severe weather, we will probably have some gusty winds as the front passes and a few strong thunderstorms , nothing to get too excited about. They will more than likely post a Tornado Watch late this afternoon as a precation . This is in no means a weather forcast, Ive just lived here all my life and I know what to exspect , if the Sun comes out today for a long period of time and the temps go up, this post is out the window and all bets are off.