Gene Orth holds a hailstone that is 17.4 inches around and 6 1/2 inches wide. Orth found the hailstone, the largest ever recorded in Nebraska, after Sunday's thunderstorm in Aurora. (Ken Blackbird)
AURORA -- As a farmer and a National Weather Service spotter, Dale Obermeier has spent more than 25 years pondering nature's fury.
A 1991 hail storm destroyed his entire corn crop. A tornado nearly took his mother in 1936; she held onto a tree while the twister uprooted trees and buildings around her.
Never had he seen anything like what fell from the sky onto his yard Sunday.
"I looked outside, and it was raining volleyballs," he said.
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