STORM2K

I think my area would likely get nickel to golf-ball size hail this season.

Only once have I seen hail in my area bigger than marble size. It was about 5 or 6 years ago at the beginning of march and some stones were larger than golfballs, it was really amazing. I'm glad I don't live in a region that sees golfball,baseball, or even softball sized hail regulary because I would hate for my car to get all dinged up.

I'd like to think bigger, but I picked pea size, that is all I saw last season, and only twice!! Just the other day we had golfball size hail to the north, but of course I missed it due to work! *sob*

I'll get lucky to get a good storm.

I chose "Dime - Nickle size"

I have yet to see hail here in Florida, although not too far away (considering) there have been reports of it.

There were some occassions that I witnessed hail in Massachusetts, but not many... both times were about pea to marble-sized.

WE had hail 4 times last year here at the W. Houston abode. Largest we got and the largest I have seen in 33 yrs. in Houston is Quarter size. We have on occasion had up to golf ball size, but it was in another part of the city.

OOPS!!!! I lied!!!! We still own a car with dings in it from quarter - gof ball size we had a few years back.

ANYWHERE FROM NICKEL TO BASEBALL SIZE.

As a dedicated SKYWARN spotter since 1967 (Hmmm, soon be 40 years of looking up..no wonder my neck hurts!), the question of hail size has bothered me since that first year.

Small hail is generally pretty consistent in shape. It is round to oval...not much in the way of jagged edges.

As size gets larger, it becomes less symmetrical and takes on all kinds of war wounds. Beyond marble-sized, you start getting stones that have had collisions with other stones, those that have been bantered about at 30,000' and higher to form rough edges and very non-symmetrical shapes.

Somehow we are then asked to compare those to quarters or golfballs or grapefruit...but they are often just a mix of stones that have morphed into larger ones.

So...I prefer the little guys. They are fun to watch, won't generally dent the surface of your car, and basically just bounce around in the backyard in a noisy, but playful fashion.

My problem as that dedicated observer is that I wanted to be accurate when I called in my report. I didn't want to be known as the guy who ALWAYS had the biggest hail.

And because I did that...there was always a report from somewhere else from an observer who called in the next size up.

I do remember, though, in the F4 tornado of 1967 (the same year I started paying more attention the the springtime sky) I went through, there really really were some round symmetrical hailstones as large as golfballs.

I was dodging them from behind a tree with a trunk only about 5" in diameter!

I said approx. dime size... we usually get hail like that every year.