It rained like 'hail' Monday afternoon, as Little Neck was assaulted with chunks of ice that were as big as baseballs.
The flash thunderstorm lasted well over 20 minutes, leaving countless windows and windshields destroyed and some local residents wondering, "what the heck is going on."
"I've never seen anything like it before in my life," said Tony Santino of Douglaston, as he helped clean a fallen tree branch from an elderly neighbor's lawn.
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Others said the scene looked like something out of a movie.
"What's the one with Dennis Quaid, where the whole world freezes over—the 'Day After Tomorrow,'" said Stanley Shack of Little Neck.
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Shack, a retired New York City Police officer was on his way home from work at the United States Merchant Marine Academy when Monday's freak hail storm broke out.
"It was unbelievable! I arrived home to find that three of my other vehicles, which were parked in front of my house, had their windshields bashed in," he said. "But what was even more peculiar is that once I got inside my house I noticed that some of the hail actually ripped through the screen of an open window and pierced the window frame and sill, inside my home."
Estimating the damage to be somewhere in the thousands, Shack stressed he wasn't looking forward to dealing with insurance.
"I still can't believe how quickly it all went down," he said, noting that the past year has seen some "crazy" weather.