Hail Size

[Adam Adkins]

I have stormchased a couple of times and I know that getting into hail is almost unavoidable. I can NOT do any damage to the car and was just wondering two things. First, how many times per chase (ex. 0.5x, 2x) would you say that you get in to some kind of hail? And what is the upper limit in hail size that you can drive through without doing any damage to a car? Also, hail seems to be a lot more frequent in CO than many other places - why is this? Thanks a lot!

 

[Jason Boggs]

probably quarter size and up would start doing damage to your car. Maybe even nickels if they were wind driven. I've been in hail one time this year, and that was on March 8th. I got hail up to quarter size.

Colorado is notorious for hail because of the high elevation. The freezing level is much closer to the ground than lower elevations, thus the hail doesn't melt as much before impacting the earth.

 

[Rob H]

Out of 7 chases so far, we've only been in hail twice - and that was the 5"+ stuff being flung at us out of the Wakita cell, and some 1" stuff on the way back from that chase. Oddly enough, I don't think we took any direct hits from the 5" pieces, but we had quite a few mini dents from the 1" stuff. You really had to look at it in the light, but they were there. Both situations could have been avoided. Nickel and up seems to be a good starting place for dents. The other "magic" number I tend to focus on is 1.5" and up since you'll start breaking windshields at that point.

 

[Connor McCrorey]

I swear, we took baseballs on 5/5/09 without a single dent to the truck. I don't know what that 1995 F-150 was made out of, but it was strong! Now chasing in a 2004 F-150, it's only been subjected to quarters at the largest (saw tennis ball on 5/10, but I got under a Valero canopy). I guess I see hail more often than most? I'd say once or twice a chase on average, but that probably has something to do with my chasing style. Not that I like to get extremely close, but that once a storm is clearly losing it's tornado potential, I like to try to find the biggest hail

 

[Chris Heater]

Once you start getting much bigger than quarters and you'll do damage. I've run into quite a bit of hail this year, mostly in IL. IL has a fair amount of hail but normally quarter sized or less. In OK on 5/10/10 we subjected my HARV (name we gave to our hail system on my truck) to baseball hail. No HARV, goodbye windows. So unless you have some sort of hail protection on your vehicle i'd try to avoid anything more than quarters

 

[Adam Adkins]

Thanks for the help. Every storm I've chased here in Colorado I've at least found 1.5" hail on the ground. And sometimes there are no options to get out of the hail! Roads get sparse in some areas of Colorado. So 1.5" kills the windshield? I thought it would be more than that... Does anyone know of any good ways to remove small hail-sized dents from a car?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

So 1.5" kills the windshield?

Not always -- it depends upon the density / hardness of the hail. I've taken baseball sized hail to my windshield without incident (5/12/04 Attica was larger than that), and the only crack I've ever had on my windshield was made by a stone that couldn't have been any larger than golfball sized. In the former case, the hail was "soft" and hit the ground like a mashed-up snowcone; in the latter case, it looked like some stones were bouncing off the roadway. Crazy stuff, sometimes!

 

[Chris Lindemann]

Dry ice works ok on small hail dents. That is assuming your car is made from metal of course. Just hold it on the dent and it usually pops out pretty quick.

Be careful with the dry ice! Heavy gloves at a minimum! It's cold enough to cause some damage to your skin.

 

[Chris Lindemann]

I should include something on bigger dents.

You can use one of those dent puller things. The "non-invasive" ones use hot glue to hold the device to the middle of the dent and has two legs going out toward the side. You turn what looks like the screw end of a bar clamp (I hope that's descriptive enough) and it puts tension on the dent. Then MAYBE it'll pop out.

Sometimes you need to use a dolly (Shaped wedges of metal) and a hammer. These work well if you can get inside the body panel to tap it out.

Then there is a body puller. This device screws into the metal and has a slide hammer that you move back toward you very quickly. You will need to fill the hole and of course paint to match.

On all of these methods there is a chance of messing up the paint. That of course is assuming the hail hasn't taken care of it for you.

I used to chase in a yellow Volkswagen beetle and I must say I became an expert at removing dents and at doing body work. Ah, the memories! Now I try to stay away from the precip core but there is always that odd situation where you can't stay out of it. My current chase vehicle is a 99 Blazer and it unfortunately has some small hail dents from last year that I just haven't taken the time to remove.

If you doubt your ability to remove it or are overly concerned with it appearing "correct" take it to a body shop. The cost can vary so get a couple of estimates. Odds are unless you were in some pretty bad hail you can fix it yourself.

 

[Dean Baron]

I ran in to quite a bit of hail this past Monday. The first storm I was actually in position to intercept was throwing out some nickel size hail and covering the ground. Farther to the north I core-punched the tornado warned storm near Alliance, NE. Didnt have time to stop and see how big it was but I'd say probably about quarter size. Made the dumb decision to try to get ahead of the hook of that same storm and again ran in to hail, but again didn't have time to stop and check the size (I did have to come to a dead stop twice because I couldn't see the road in front of me thanks to the hail/wind but checking hail size was definitely not a priority at the time). Had a few nice thumps on the roof of the car while in the hook and probably about golf ball size but I don't know for sure. 5/31/08 I ran in to a ton of quarter size hail on a tor-warned storm northwest of Minneapolis. Those are about the only chases I've ever really ran in to much hail though, so maybe 3 or 4 chases since 2006 I've really ran in to hail.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Maybe I've just been lucky, but in 9 years of chasing I've only gotten damage to my car twice. I chase probably about 15-20 times a year so I'm not just getting out locally or anything like that. One of the times we intentionally punched a core and only got little dents in the car. The other time wasn't intentional and the dents weren't so little lol.

The one time we got hammered was a year or two ago in NW Missouri. It was a freak deal where a storm instead of just right turning, which I was prepared for, literally turned more than 90 degrees to the right. It was BS. We got hammered with baseball hail and my car didn't come out of it looking too good. I had some HUGE dents and a broken windshield.

I've seen baseball hail several other times, but I get the hell out of there as soon as I see one of those things thump into the ground. Nothing puts the fear of god in you like a 4 inch hail stone thudding into the ground at your feet.
You should be able to avoid the hail if you have radar in the car and you chase smart. Except for the one time we got pounded all the other hail I've got in has just been a little wrap around and we got out of there before the car got hit. I wouldn't worry about hail damage if you have the right equipment and are experienced. If that isn't the case you probably should worry about it.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

In my 9 years of chasing, I have yet to lose a windshield. :knocks on wood

I must be doing something wrong.

 

[J Tyler]

I am a car fanatic. I park in the boonies so I don't get door dings. So, as you can imagine, I work to try and avoid hail at ALL costs. But, sooner or later, it will get me. When it does, I'll call up this guy who does PDR (Paintless Dent Removal) for me. It is an amazing process where they artfully -bend- the metal back into shape from behind using specialized tools. When they are done, you can NOT tell.

I've been wanting to buy the tools and learn how to do it myself. Does anyone here have a hookup????

 

[Billy Mason]

...who does PDR (Paintless Dent Removal) for me. It is an amazing process where they artfully -bend- the metal back into shape...

Doesn't seem to work too well for aluminum that has been streached by the hail. Speaking from experience, 5 week old truck caught in baseball sized hail in 2007. I was moving the truck to some covered shelter and got caught out in the open due to the morons stopping under the freeway overpass. Was not a happy camper, especially since the other vehicles that were left at the WFO did not get touched.

 

[John Wetter]

I've chased 14 years now with probably 10-20 chases a year and have gotten maybe one or two little dents total in all that time. It's about being experienced around a storm and managing your chase.