LEMOORE, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – Across much of the valley, people saw rain and clouds when they looked out their windows. But in Hanford and Lemoore, people there got something else.
Hail.
“It almost looks like snow!” said Luis Gutierrez, a local business owner.
Hail filled the streets, sidewalks, storefronts, and neighborhoods. It clung to the roofs of grocery store shopping centers and filled parking lots for hours. The hail blanketed parts of Kings County with its white round pebbles.
“For some people, it might be scary but for me, I think it’s kind of cool,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez owns the restaurants Pasta Fresh and Tacos El Grullo on North Lemoore Avenue, an area hit hardest by the storm. He says he was driving from Visalia to check up on his businesses when the hail started coming down.
“I just started hearing these loud bangs on all the glass, on the car, like on the top and the front, and it felt like it was gonna crack the windshield or something,” he said, describing the moment the hail started.