Hail Storms:Tales of Awe, or Whoa?

[Rob Wadsworth]

Since this is first year chasing, I haven't seen any hail larger than a few golf balls. I had to report 3/4"> to the NWS as an eSpotter this year from Storm Lake IA.
My 92 yo Uncle recently told me of a hailstorm that hit only the N section of Alta IA when he was 17, that was less than a foot deep that rendered all the fields so destroyed - that not even a stock of corn could be seen for a couple of square miles and stayed on the ground for almost two days.
3" hail - Wow...
But the films I've seen of base balls covering the ground and the damage it can do - what is your horror story - or is it one of awe?
Or is it both?

Edit: Interesting link
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0804_030804_largesthailstone.html

 

[Brandon Ivey]

I don't really have any horror stories of hail, although others would call them horror stories. I actually enjoy punching inside the core and checking out what the storm has to offer. I tend to do this quite often when tornadoes are not developing with a storm I am chasing. I have lost two windows due to hail. My only fear would be if the hail was so large that it totally destroyed the windshield, allowing deadly hail to fall inside the vehilcle. That has not happened yet. If it does, I have thought ahead and have a couple plans to avoid injury or death.

The largest hailstone to hit my vehicle last year would be in the range of tennis ball to baseball size. The largest measured hailstone I found last year was 4.00" in diameter. It fell west of Greensburg on May 26th, 2008. We found it on the side of a dirt road, just south of highway 54. I hope to see larger hail in 2009, but I know topping a 4" hailstone will be hard to do.

 

[Shane Adams]

I'm a tornado chaser so I rarely get into hail, let alone giant hail. However I have been cored with baseballs twice. The first time, on April 5, 2003 in NW Texas, was loud but otherwise uneventful, because my partner's truck had a hail guard (which did the job but had a lot of 3-inch diameter pock mocks when it was over). I was in awe that time, because I'd never experienced a concentrated core of baseballs...I think the way they shook the vehicle was what amazed me the most, hail you could feel as well as hear. The other time was May 12, 2005 in the southern TX panhandle, along with scores of other chasers. Wasn't so lucky that day, lost the entire back windshield (completely gone) and got a huge spiderweb on the front windshield (driver's side, naturally). I'd always wanted to lose glass in giant hail just for the experience, but had let go of that goal over the years as I realized it was pretty stupid for a chaser like me with shallow pockets...and then this day happened. Be careful what you wish for. No regrets though, as I chose to take the hail barrage over possibly being tornado debris (the situation looked serious enough that I wasn't going to risk it).

Overall, hail just doesn't do anything for me. If it's big enough to thrill me, that means I'm losing glass (and chasing $$$). I look at hail like flying; tried it, liked it, but don't wanna do it again.

 

[MatthewCarman]

This is not a horror story but I have been in a 10 minute hail storm once with hail to the size of golfballs. The ground looked as white as snow. This hail storm occured with a linear looking storm but the storm did have some weak rotation on the front of it before the hail hit. I have seen some hail that looked a little larger than golfballs another time but it melted so fast before I could get a good look of it so I can't be sure of that.

 

[Benjamin Rock]

In the 16 years Ive been chasing, I have replaced all the windows and outside mirros on the car, several times. Including a couple antennas and weather monitoring equipment. Hail is a great thing to see, but i can do without the damage. There are still some homes out here that are waiting for hail damage repair from a hail storm last year. The stones were baseball and pounded their siding and even a couple places it went thru their walls! Very freaky.

 

[Angie Norris]

The largest hail I have been in is golfball in May 1995...wasn't chasing, but was watching it from the comfort of my living room in TN . It sounded like it was coming through the roof. The largest hail I've been in while chasing is quarters, but I did see some 3" hail in southern KS on 5-22-08...missed being in it by just a few minutes. I did do a bit of core punching last Wednesday and got a good amount of nickles (made some nice noise on the car, but no new dings darn it). I don't mind hail, but if it's bigger than golfballs it starts to make me a bit antsy.

 

[Adam Lucio]

The largest hail Ive seen sadly was only a wee bit bigger than golf balls, they had been laying there for about half an hour so they were likely bigger.

I enjoy hail almost as much as tornadoes. If I know Im not going to get a tornado, than I can be almost as happy getting into a nice hail core. 2009 I will do more of that. I plan on putting hail guards on my new chase vehicle.Even the sound of driving through it can make for some intense video. To me its amazing knowing something so heavy got lofted into the sky and then fell.

The biggest hailstorm Ive driven through was 4-21-07 in eastern Colorado, there it covered the road maybe an inch or 2 deep but it was quarter size and smaller, but tons of it!

 

[Danny Neal]

Largest hail I have encountered while getting cored were quarters in Central Illinois in Iroquois County on May 30th, 2004. I have seen golf balls after the fact in Kansas back in 2001. I love hail and hail storms. Of course after the fact when you are taping up your windshield and sweating the bill when it comes, you start questioning your own mental capacity

 

[John Farley]

My biggest hail encountered falling is golfball - both chasing and at home. However, on May 29, 2004, I encountered at least 4" stones on the ground near Thomas, OK (and there were confirmed reports of 5" stones with that storm). I love watching hail, as long as my car is not getting beaten up by it. One of my more enjoyable chases last year was parking under a gas station canopy in Pinckneyville, IL and watching quarters come down for 10 minutes. I also enjoy it when you get enough to turn the ground white like snow, regardless of size. Had a nice experience of that, along with hail fog, in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains above Santa Fe, NM this past June.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

I prefer to stay out of the big hail, but I'll punch an occasional core that has golf balls or smaller. Now, ask me again in a couple months when I get a new car, and I'll probably be avoiding cores entirely. Besides, you can't see anything in hail cores, so I don't see the point in going through them unless it's your only option.

Now, the worst hail I've been in was 4-5-2003 down in Texas...same storm Shane was talking about. I missed out on most of the giant hail that day, but I was in some quarter-size to half dollar-size hail for quite an extended period of time. Here's some clips of it. Most of the commentary you here is from my dad who was driving. Ironically, my dad has just brought my car back to me the day before after having the roof and grill replaced due to a fender bender.
http://www.stormkiller.com/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,112/?g2_itemId=339
http://www.stormkiller.com/component/option,com_gallery2/Itemid,112/?g2_itemId=342

Probably the most bizarre hail story I've heard about has to be the Union County Glacier in NE NM that occurred south of Clayton. Here's a link to an article about it.
http://www.physics.nmt.edu/~rsonnenf/atmospheric/Pubs/New%20Mexico%20Geology%20Vol%2026.pdf

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Biggest hail I ever got was a storm north of Kearney, Nebraska back in 2002. A 2 minute barrage of baseballs to softballs crushed my front windshield and put grapefruit-sized dents in my hood and roof that the car wore like a red badge of courage for the rest of its life. When I first saw one hit the ground, I was like "uhhhh... what was that?" because the hailstone hit the highway ahead of me in a streak of white and then bounced like 15 feet back up into the air. I didn't get to wonder for long, as this was followed by many large "WHAM!" sounds, one which actually knocked the dome light in the ceiling of my Civic out and onto the backseat. I pulled over into a rural home's driveway, opened my driver's side door, and literally and dove through an open garage door. Fortunately, once they emerged from the basement, the occpants of the home were kind and did not greet me with a shotgun, but with kindness and bewilderment at what was going on outside.

 

[Laura Hedien]

We had 3.9" hail in Mertzon TX May 4 2006. We heard the roar. It was pretty wild. The next day in Seminole TX we had slightly smaller hail destroy our windshields.
It was hailing "where it shouldn't have been". It is suspected the updraft was so strong, the hail was coming out of the updraft like a popcorn popper as opposed to falling back down through the downdraft.
Not sure if I buy that, but don't know why it hailed where it did.
The lens cap is 77 mm or 3.1"
Laura

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I've seen baseballs a hand full of times and softballs (maybe a little larger) once, it was actually May 22nd 2004 day of the Hallam storm; I've had my car in the shop a couple of times, though after the May 22nd storm was by far the worst. Twice this year I had encounters with Baseballs, 3-30 near Rocky OK, and then 5-29 somewhere East of Kearney, I'm not big on searching for hail, though sometimes you got to be willing to take a few hits for the best view of the tornado, and I won't let the risk of some hail prevent me from a decent shot of a tornado. I might be a little more reluctant starting out this next year given my car is brand new, but I'm sure once that first stone hits it I'll be good to go.

Besides, you can't see anything in hail cores, so I don't see the point in going through them unless it's your only option.

A lot of my big hail encounters were not necessarily in what I would consider the heaviest "cant see the front of your car cores", a lot of the time with big supercells the biggest hail seems to fall immediately upstream of the tornado in the rain free vault area, so you might not necessarily be in the heaviest core and have a clear view for miles but have baseballs or larger falling...

My Favorite all time experience with hail was back on June 10th 2006, we were chasing a high plains LPish storm in E CO. We cut through a dusty RFD, the dust was so bad you literally couldn't see the road or the hood of your car, though once we cleared the dust the sun broke out and a big rotating wall cloud appeared to our East, the dust continued to blow across the field in front of us as a double rainbow appeared the sun shined bright and large hail began to fill the sky. I didn't have my SLR back then and had to settle with video grabs that don't do the scene justice... Since this I always have an urge to check out the backside of storms when conditions allow...

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

I love getting into hail like most other chasers, but due to my dad having a company car we haven't been able to core punch much, however he gave that up and we bought a beat up Nissan Pathfinder. We have only chased twice in it and already damaged it with hail. Though when we bought it, it was covered in hail dents from the previous owners encounter with hail. LOL.

Anyway my scariest hail encounter was on March 30 in SW Oklahoma. We were sitting on the NW side of the meso watching a wall cloud form with the sun lighting it up as a pinkish red color. I noticed there were huge hailstones of the ground (baseballs) and I went out to pick one up and as I was going back to the car to show my dad a massive stone fell. One fell just about ten feet away from me. It hit the road and broke apart, but I ran to the car lol.

Another good encounter was on Nov 5 of this year in Perkins, OK. Hail around tennisball size was barraging us as it was flying near horizontal with the 70+ MPH winds. We were luckily under a gas station awning, but we still received a few dents prior to finding shelter.

Next year we will likely find more and bigger hail as now we can.

 

[Josh Richardson]

Just the same as most on here I have seen baseballs a few times at least and golf balls, of course, more times than I can remember. Biggest yet was last year near Waterloo IA where we reported a few stones the size of softballs.