A short and wicked late afternoon storm that blew through Wellesley on Tuesday, July 18, 2016, downed numerous trees, damaged homes and knocked out power in parts of town. One minute a friend and I were sitting in my family room sipping tea and commenting on the hail coming down outside (“Oh my, do you think those nasty flying ice chunks will chip the paint on the Subaru, dear?”). An hour later I stopped by that same friend’s house, not even a mile away, to survey her hard-hit home in the Cottage St. area.
Turns out that just down the road from me and tea for two, more than a little hail was falling. Downed limbs scattered her yard, and I marveled at plants that had literally been pulled out of her garden by the roots and tossed across the yard as if weeded by the wind.
The verdict seems to be that the storm was a macroburst. The Dana Hall area got nailed (Leighton, Ingraham, Belair, Lathrop, etc.), but also along Route 135 toward Wellesley Square, and Wellesley College got hit too. Just from my own tour around town, this is what I saw. I started out in the South Natick area. As I drove along, first I saw a few leaves in the road on Rt 16 near Hunnewell Farm. Next there were some sticks and branches down in front of the Wellesley College president’s house. By the time I got to the Wellesley College Club, the the real damage started making itself known in the form of downed trees, tilting telephone poles, and twisted wires. Here are my pics, and thank you to everyone who send plenty of great photos to us, which we used (and credited) on the site and our FB page.
All told, the first toppled tree I saw was at the Wellesley College Club. The last one I saw down was on the Brook Path just before State St., at the Whole Foods end of town. Quite a swath.
