Hail Chasers: Hunting America’s $10 Billion Weather Threat

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BY BEN TRACY, SENIOR CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT ON ASSIGNMENT FOR CLIMATE CENTRAL

It’s one of the most destructive — yet least understood — forces of nature. Hail routinely pummels homes, shreds crops, and dents vehicles, causing more than $10 billion in damage each year in the U.S. alone. Now, scientists are working to better understand this frozen menace in hopes of giving us more warning before it strikes.

Chasing the Storm: The Science of Hail

Chunks of ice — some as large as baseballs — rain down from severe thunderstorms with little notice, leaving behind a path of costly destruction. That’s why meteorologist Victor Gensini and his team at Northern Illinois University are chasing hailstorms through the Great Plains as part of Project ICECHIP.

“Step one of the scientific method is to go get observations and the atmosphere is our laboratory,” says Gensini. His team launches weather balloons and deploys mobile radar units in the heart of active storm systems to gather rare, real-time data.

So what’s it like inside one of these powerful hailstorms? Gensini puts it this way: “It’s kind of like being a car wash except it sounds like somebody’s hitting the hood of your vehicle with a hammer.”

Despite the dramatic impact of hail, it often takes a backseat in public perception compared to tornadoes.

“I like to think of tornadoes as the sexy peril,” Gensini says. “Everybody thinks about tornadoes… Wizard of Oz, right? There was no scene in the Wizard of Oz of large hail.”

A Growing Threat in a Changing Climate

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. averages around 7,000 severe hail events each year, contributing to a sharp increase in billion-dollar weather disasters. And climate models suggest that trend could get worse.

“Future climates that are warmer tend to have stronger updrafts,” explains Gensini. “And we think that means more large hail.”

That’s because hail forms when strong updrafts carry raindrops into freezing layers of the atmosphere, allowing them to grow before falling to Earth. In a warmer world, those updrafts may be getting even stronger — fueling larger and more damaging hailstones.

Reading the Rings of Ice

In Boulder, Colorado, researchers are studying nearly 100 hailstones collected this summer. Inside a frigid lab, the stones are sliced open like tree trunks to examine their layered growth patterns.

“Almost like rings of a tree, each of the rings shows us different growth patterns of the hailstone,” Gensini explains.

Understanding how hailstones form and grow could help forecasters not only predict when hail will strike — but how big it might be.

A Personal Toll

For residents in hail-prone areas, like Keith Pirtle of Norman, Oklahoma, the damage is personal — and expensive.

“I had to replace a total of four roofs and three cars,” he says.

Pirtle thought his newly installed roof would last 20 to 30 years. It lasted two weeks before another hailstorm hit.

“When I went to my insurance company, they said basically if I claim anything else, they’re dropping me,” he says. “Which I found kind of annoying because I didn’t start the hailstorm. I didn’t make it up.”

As cities continue to sprawl into storm-prone areas, the potential for damage only grows — along with the cost of insurance premiums.

Capturing Hail in Action

At NOAA’s National Severe Storms Lab, Jeff Snyder and his team are using cutting-edge technology to study hail as it falls — in real time. Their secret weapon? A pickup truck outfitted with high-speed 4K cameras and extremely bright LED panels.

“We’re getting more light out of this panel than we get from the sun,” Snyder says.

The system allows them to film hailstones hurtling to the ground at speeds up to 90 miles per hour. And the footage is more than just visually stunning — it’s scientifically invaluable.

“For example, how quickly does hail fall? How exactly does it fall?” Snyder asks. “What better way to observe natural hailstones than to observe them naturally?”

These insights are already helping improve weather models, which could mean more accurate forecasts — and earlier warnings — in the future.

As scientists continue to unlock the mysteries of hail, their research could help communities better prepare for a weather threat that is growing in both frequency and ferocity.

For more data and graphics on this growing trend, visit Climate Central’s Severe Storm Tracker.