Russell County Hail
Thanks to our friend Derek Kinkade from WTVM-TV in Columbus, GA for passing along these images taken by one of their viewers from Fort Mitchell, Alabama, who writes:
“I hadn’t seen much about the severe hail storm that caused serious damage out here in Fort Mitchell, AL so I decided to send you some of these pics to give you an idea.
From: Pummeled in Fort Mitchell”
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It looks to me like several pieces of hail were ‘compressed’ together to make them look bigger.
The pictures clearly show much smaller hail on the ground, looks like the photographer made the hail look larger for the pictures.
Brad,
A lot of the hail that hit on solid surfaces broke up once it hit the ground, giving the appearance of smaller pieces. We have pictures and video of baseball and softball sized hail from this storm as it tracked across Russell County, so I have no reason to believe this picture was of hail that was ‘compressed’ to look bigger. Besides, that would be a pretty difficult process.. It would be next to impossible to take a few ice cubes out of the freezer, stand outside for a few minutes, and then make them freeze together nice and neat by holding them in your hand.
Hailstones, when they knock into each other high in a cloud, sometimes will freeze together, giving them an irregular appearance, with different spikes and bumps. This is due to the different processes that cause hail formation (riming and accretion), and the stone’s journey through the updraft region of a thunderstorm, moving above and below the freezing line. More can be found on this page, if cloud microphysics is something of any interest.. check it out, page 20!
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/education/master/cloud_microphysics/lecture10_11
Derek Kinkade
Meteorologist
WTVM-TV
Columbus, GA
Derek, thank you so much for the detailed explanation. I really learned a lot from you..
Brad
Brad, you have got to be kidding! Hail is rarely ever round like a ball once it gets very large. I’ve seen many big hailstorms in my lifetime, including two with softball sized hail. The second one of those was driven by 80 mph winds, driving the stones all the way through the decking of roofs in places.
More ginormous hailstones…
http://www.talkweather.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=40619&view=findpost&p=460920
Vic, sorry I am not an expert but I am learning.
Brad
I have a question. At what size does hail have to be to hurt you? Not considering the wind, just hail.
Has anyone died from being hit with hail stone?
Thanks for any comments.
“Hail” of a storm!! Sorry… I had to do it.
Better get your roofs checked, they may not look damaged, but we had a hail storm 10 years ago, with hail smaller than your storm, and we had to have the roof replaced.
I’ve worked alot of storms and very rarely is hail of that size perfectly round, and the answer to chucks question is yes people have died from hail even recently in china 14 people died from hail falling.