World Record Hailstone
July 30th, 2010 at 8:11 pm by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
<–foot wide hail divot in Vivian. A record setting hailstone fell in Vivian SD on July 22. It measured 8.0 inches in diameter, 18.625 inches in circumference, and weighed in at an amazing 1.9375 pounds! This hailstone broke the previous United States hail size record for diameter (7.0 inches – 22 June 2003 in Aurora, NE) and weight (1.67 pounds - 3 September 1970 in Coffeyville, KS). The Aurora, Nebraska hailstone will retain the record for circumference (18.75 inches). It’s likely the hailstone melted for some time before it was discovered and put in a cold refrigerator. Here’s an animation of the storm. It’s estimated that the updraft in the storm was 160-180 mph. It’s estimated that hail like this could fall at over 70 mph. That’s why airplanes like to avoid flying into thunderstorms! Here’s helicopter video of up to a foot of hail near Denver. Picture of plowed street here. Another great picture here. More cool pictures here. Here’s pictures of the hailstone traveling from S. Dakota to Colorado and video of the hail in the cold room at NCAR’s lab in Colorado.
Largest Hail that I know of in Michigan 1950-2009 Data:
4.50 inch hail 07-26-78 Livingston County
4.50 inch hail 07-26-78 Macomb County
4.50 inch hail 03-27-91 Kalamazoo County
Storm Data mentions Softball size hail fell in Portage in Kalamazoo County
at 1925 EST on March 27, 1991. It did extensive damage to cars and windows.
Many trees had extensive damage done to their leaves.
Hi,
I got my computer’s volume turned up all the way and can’t hear the video weather feed on wood’s website clearly,this has been an ongoing thing, volume is very low. But I sure can hear the commercial that plays before it loud and clear, just like when you get blasted out of your chair during TV watching. Can you turn up the volume for the important stuff? Thanks.
Thats not hail…its a kidney stone of Chuck Norris.