Hail Cannons Sound Off!!

I got to hear the hail cannons go off at work yesterday!!!! My goal for the summer has just been met!

It was 7:47/7:50ish in the morning and we had all settled in to start our shift at 7:30, when Mother Nature decided to roll on through with a ravaging thunderstorm. Lightning, thunder, and rain absolutely vomited all over the Nissan landscape. It was incredible strength, and my boss walkie-talkied me to usher outside to stand underneath one of our tents to hear the hail cannons go off.

A group of us went outside, for everyone was so proud to show "Intern Ashley" the prized hail cannons in action. I raced ahead of the group, excited like I was in kindergarten all over again. I skipped down the stairs (without tripping, YESSS!), skipped across our lab's garage, and right out the door to the nearest tent, sure that the others were shortly behind me.

We stood outside, and the hail cannons started going off. It was not what I expected at all....

1) The hail cannons don't provide one long, loud boom -- they set off sonic booms once every THREE SECONDS. I even counted it out. They had this pattern last for about 5 minutes.
2) I was honestly disappointed when I heard them. They were quiet. There was no 'booming' action, what the heck?! I was standing probably a football field length away from them, and it sounded like someone had a drumstick and was just giving one single solid thud to a drum or something. Just a THWACK...one two three...THWACK....one two three....THWACK...one two three..........I had to paste a smile on my face to hide my disappointment while all the other Nissan employees stopped what they were doing to watch their cannons destroy hail.

The storm passed, we went inside, and I finished my half day of work.


I went home, put up my feet, and started surfing TV channels at my apartment. I stumbled across the Weather Channel and noticed that a severe thunderstorm warning was placed for my area - so it appeared that a second round of storms was going to blow through! Bring out the barf bags for all of the rain that was about to spill!

About a half hour after noticing this Weather Channel posting, I was on the phone with Joe when I lept up on my feet to get out onto my balcony. It sounded like a huge locomotive TRAIN was PLOWING through the golf course off of my front steps!








Nissan had lit up their hail cannons again and that was what I was hearing.


This time, I was far enough away that I was able to experience the resonance from sound waves when they all pile up and basically magnify one another. The first boom was loud, but three seconds later the second boom was even louder, and the boom after that was even LOUDER. It felt like if I were to close my eyes I could imagine a huge snowballing cloud come driving towards me.

It was incredible, and made me understand why all of those employees were standing together with their arms crossed, smiling, earlier today underneath that tent. They knew what message they were sending off to the rest of the town. :)