Large Hail | Times When Hail Can Destroy
There will be hailstorms when the hail is terrifyingly big and dangerous. Learn about large hail below…
At this site, we had a recent post on this type of precipitation, covering the basics of it, but this time, we will go deeper. The NWS classifies large hail as being at least 1 inch wide, which is bigger than the sometimes tiny ice pebbles. But it can get much bigger than that, crashing through the roofs of homes and the windshields of cars. In this post, we will identify how it gets this big, instances in which it has happened, and more.
This post is all about large hail.
Large and Destructive Hail
What Causes It?
Large hail, according to the NWS, is >1 inch in width, or a quarter. It appears often in very large thunderstorms like supercells. It occurs when the updraft keeps or pushes up the hailstone forming in the cloud for a long period. That is the reason that stronger updrafts mostly have larger hail. When the moisture-packed storm lets the hail go down, the large hailstone falls faster than the smaller ones, which can cause serious damage to livestock and property. There have even been hailstones over 1/2 a foot wide!
Large Hail Updraft Speeds
As mentioned earlier, larger hailstones need faster updrafts to keep them in the clouds longer and grow. Below is a list of hail sizes and their needed updraft speed to get to that size, from 24, to 98 mph. I will also list the sizes compared to real-life objects.
- Pea: 1/4″ – 24 mph
- Mothball: 1/2″ – 35 mph
- Penny: 3/4″ – 40 mph
- Nickel: 7/8″ – 46 mph
- Quarter: 1″ – 49 mph
- Ping Pong Ball: 1.5″ – 60 mph
- Golf Ball: 1.75″ – 64 mph
- Hen Egg: 2″ – 69 mph
- Tennis Ball: 2.5″ – 77 mph
- Baseball: 2.75″ – 81 mph
- Softball: +4″ – +100 mph
HP or LP Supercells?
Supercells are the biggest and most powerful thunderstorms on Earth, and large hail accompanies them a lot of the time! In the section title, it says HP and LP, and in case you do not know, that is to address how much precipitation a supercell produces and has. HP stands for High Precipitation and LP stands for Low Precipitation. With those terms, you can probably figure out what those mean, with HP having a lot of precip, and LP not so much. But surprisingly, LP supercells are more likely to have larger hail than HP, with LP supercells often having that as their form of precipitation This happens in these large hail storms because of the intense updraft they have with not a lot of precipitation to weaken it.
How Fast Does Hail Fall?
After the hail beats the downdraft in force, it falls. Different-sized hailstones fall at different speeds, the bigger ones usually being the fastest. This is because of the greater weight per surface area, which decreases the air resistance, making it fall faster. Now here is how fast it falls in mph and inches…
- >1″ – 9-25 mph
- 1-1.75″ – 25-40 mph
- 2-4″ – 44-72 mph
- +4″ – +100
Large Hail Damage
The last section of this post will be the damage that large hail can cause. It can shatter and crash through windshields, damage weak walls of homes, and hurt vegetation. The big hail can also, in very extreme cases, crash through the roofs of homes if they are big enough. It can also severely impact the lives of many. Livestock is often helpless in this case, which can seriously hurt or kill them. It can also be fatal to humans. There have been cases of hundreds of people dying in a single hailstorm because of its size, speed, updraft strength, and the general thunderstorm itself.
