Hail Stones

[caz21]

Has anyone else just seen the hail stones as big as ice cubes? i thought they were going to smash the windows!

[Mortartube]

I didn't see those, but these are bigger (but by no means the biggest).

http://www.ucar.edu/research/storms/images/grapefruit-hail300.jpg

http://www.climateprediction.net/schools/images/bighail.jpg

And here's the world record.

http://severewx.atmos.uiuc.edu/19/online.19.1.aurora.html

[caz21]

That second one looks like a snowball! cripes!! now i think they probably would smash the windows!

[Playbill]

We were on holiday in the south of France a few years ago and family turned up in a car that looked like someone had hit every panel with a small hammer. The rear window was smashed and covered with plastic. Not vandals, but a hailstorm the previous day which had also even ripped through the tents where they had been staying.

They showed us photographs of the hailstones which they needed for their insurance claim as the car was a right off, and they were BIG.

[lord molly]

in 2004, the family and i went to florida. there was a thunder storm, followed shortly after with hail stones the size of golf balls, we had to take refuge in a mall, where we got talking to a local who told us it is not unusual for this to happen, and doe so almost every time there is a huge storm.

[lord molly]

i just took a ook at the pictures, eek, the ones in florida were no where near that big, thoes could probbaly kill somebody, the first one looks like it could weigh up to one kg. woow!

[Xollob]

In July 1984 Munich was hit by a monster hailstorm with stones weighing up to 300g coming down at 150 kph. 400 people were injured, 70,000 buildings and 250,000 cars were damaged. See article here (about six entries down). I lived in Munich for a while in 1989-1990 and you could still see cars that had got a hammering that day.

[thatman]

The largest Ive ever seen myself was in Hay-on-Wye whilst walking the Offas Dyke route in about 1982 or 3 , they were about the size of ice cubes.