Why Hailstorms Outpace Tornadoes in Damage Costs II

Hailstorms begin to produce damage once hail size exceeds one inch in diameter, which the National Weather Service considers “severe.” That’s around the point when vegetation is impacted. Golf ball-sized hail can ravage crops, and anything bigger can easily shatter vehicle windows and cause dents. Larger stones the size of baseballs can strip siding from homes, and softball- to grapefruit-sized hail often causes structural damage.

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Widespread Destruction: Hail's Impact on Farms and Cities. I

That’s why hail is a costly hazard in both rural and urban areas. A small tornado might carve through only a fraction of a cornfield, but a hailstorm might have a hail swath five miles wide and fifty miles long — leading to a footprint thousands of times greater. From an agricultural standpoint, hail is a plague.

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Widespread Destruction: Hail's Impact on Farms and Cities. II

But in cities, a single unlucky hailstorm can total tens of thousands of cars and easily become a billion-dollar disaster — even without any human casualties. On Wednesday, April 28, 2021, baseball- to softball-sized hail pelted suburbs of Oklahoma City, Dallas and San Antonio.

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Widespread Destruction: Hail's Impact on Farms and Cities. III

During that same episode, a “gargantuan” 6.4-inch stone was recovered near Hondo, west of San Antonio. It held the Texas state record until a 7 to 8 inch cantaloup-sized stone fell in the Texas Panhandle on June 2 of this year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/06/03/texas-hail-melon-storm-record/

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Challenges in Forecasting and Understanding Giant Hail

Yet hail is still somewhat poorly understood by scientists. Meteorologists struggle to estimate the maximum size of hail using radar alone, and radar-derived algorithms — like MESH, or Maximum Estimated Size of Hail — are inherently flawed. What more, giant hail can occur in a wide array of very different atmospheric environments that transcend seasons and geography. Even Hawaii and Massachusetts have reported softballs-sized hail before.

Mitigating Risk in an Era of Increasing Hail Threats I

For property owners or insurers, knowing when severe hail will strike can be a game changer. Even a small amount of advanced notice can afford time to move a vehicle into a garage or cover exposed property. On the large scale, tens of billions of dollars could be saved annually by taking minor, but strategic, steps ahead of the incidence of large hail.

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