I have a question about hail.

[MatthewCarman]

I wasint sure where to put this but I have a newbie question. The NOAA put this up for my county:

.DAY ONE...TONIGHT

SCATTERED SHOWERS AND SOME THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP
BEFORE MIDNIGHT. SEVERAL STORMS MAY PRODUCE NON SEVERE HAIL UP DIME
SIZE AND WINDS TO 45 MPH.

I was always told winds in essess of 58 MPH, hail penny/dime size or larger and a storm capable of producing a tornado was a severe storm or above severe limits. So is this a typo/mistake by the Noaa or did I miss something?

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Hail needs to be .75 inches in diameter to be considered severe.

 

[MatthewCarman]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I am still learning here. -MatthewCarman.

 

[Alex Lamers]

I was always told winds in essess of 58 MPH, hail penny/dime size or larger and a storm capable of producing a tornado was a severe storm or above severe limits. So is this a typo/mistake by the Noaa or did I miss something?
[/b]

The dime sized hail is technically 7/10" and penny size hail is 3/4". So I guess what they were saying was anything up to severe criteria without quite reaching it. However some offices will still take dime sized hail as 0.75 inches and put it out on an LSR...I guess it varies on the person.

Other hail measurements...

0.88" - nickel
1.00" - quarter
1.25" - half dollar
1.50" - walnut or ping pong ball
1.75" - golfball
2.00" - "hen egg"
2.75" - baseball

and so forth.

 

[rdale]

...and depends on whether or not a warning was issued...

 

[Joe Nield]

...and depends on whether or not a warning was issued...
[/b]

Dimes count here at IND, warning or not.

 

[David Drummond]

I found that unless there is a whole lot of severe weather going on in a county warning area, most office like to get the penny/dime size reports, most especially if it's one of those that drops HUGE amounts of it. I have seen it several times completely cover the roads to a depth of several inches, and be no larger than a penny. That IS a significant hail report, regardless of the size and DOES adversly affect at least motorists in the affected area.

Sometime hail reports of 1/2" or so can give the forecasters a better idea of the ground truth of what hail is falling, so it their algorithyms might be showing 3/4" severe and it's really not, or even, combined with other information, that the storm may soon be producing severe hail.

Remember, the hail algorithyms on radar while good, are not perfect and only a ground truth observation can tell the forecasters EXACTLY what is happening.