Hail Storm Oklahoma City Video And Images

A ferocious hail storm has smashed up cars, battered houses and buried Oklahoma City in so much ice that it looked like snow had struck in spring.

The storm hit the south central U.S. city on Sunday afternoon bringing hail stones as large as softballs and thumping rain that forced motorists off roads in an effort avoid shattered windshields.

YouTube and social networking sites, such as Twitter, were flooded with images and comments from local residents as they gave their own accounts of the freak storm.

The hail was so fierce that it damaged two ambulance units, one fire truck and 34 police vehicles.

Mark Lisle, a former bank chief executive, posted an image on his Twitter blog, of his son's Volkswagen Jetta with the back windscreen completely smashed in.

Oklahoma City News 9 reporter Rusty Surette wrote on his micro-blogging site: 'Hey, Oklahoma! What the hail just happened?

'Driving around.. Looks like snow on ground. Busted windows on vehicles all over the place!!!'

Mr Surette also urged his Twitter followers to send him personal accounts and images of the hail to be broadcast on the local news.

Tim Hartmuller, who runs cross country and track and field at Oklahoma City University, sent in a photograph of his back covered in welts and bruises after getting caught in the hail.

Mr Hartmuller had been going for run along a lake when the storm started to develop. He thought he could make it back to his car in time, but became stuck trying to hide behind a bin.

He described being pelted by golf ball-sized hail stones.

'It was just ridiculous. I was pretty much just running for my life. And I saw a random guy in a truck filming the storm and I waived him down and got in his truck and I'm pretty sure he saved my life,' the OCU athlete told News 9.

Wind gusts as high as 60 mph were measured during the storm, which struck just one day after a tornado hit other parts of the state of Oklahoma.

Ironically, a farm in Fairfax, where scenes from the film Twister had been shot, was damaged by the twisters.

J. Berry Harrison, owner of the farm, said he lost two houses, five barns, two silos, a horse and farm equipment.

He said his family were unhurt.

In the 1996 movie starring Helen Hunt, a tornado runs along a road and over a bridge where actors are taking shelter.

Mr Harrison said the real tornado followed a similar path.

The storms were part of a violent weather system that produced twisters in Kansas and other parts of Oklahoma.