Three Hailstorms in Oklahoma, Texas, Wednesday Likely Caused Over $1 Billion Damage Combined

 Jonathan Erdman

Published: April 29, 2021

Three separate hailstorms swept across parts of Texas and Oklahoma Wednesday evening, smashing vehicle windshields and windows of homes – even punching through roofs in what is likely to be a billion-dollar disaster.

"Hail damage in Norman, Fort Worth and San Antonio combined are likely to exceed $1 billion," said Bryan Wood, an Ohio-based meteorologist working in the insurance industry, in a tweet Thursday morning.

The first of these began as a supercell thunderstorm crossed the border from northern Mexico late Wednesday afternoon, dumping up to 3-inch diameter hail near Laughlin Air Force Base southeast of Del Rio, Texas.

This supercell continued tracking east roughly along the U.S. 90 corridor, producing hail up to 4 inches in diameter – about the size of softballs. The hail was large enough to punch through the roof and ceiling of a home in Sabinal, about 60 miles west of downtown San Antonio.

(MORE: Impacts of Texas, Oklahoma Hailstorms)

The supercell prompted tornado warnings in the city of Hondo, Texas, and also once it reached the San Antonio metro area, where up to golf ball-sized hail was reported on the city's west side, driven by wind gusts estimated from 60 to 80 mph.

Various other hail-producing thunderstorms also rumbled across parts of South Texas Wednesday, leaving swaths of hail over 100 miles long, as estimated by National Weather Service radar.

As that first hailstorm pelted Hondo, then San Antonio, another supercell thunderstorm began dumping huge hail in parts of the Fort Worth, Texas, metro area.

This second hailstorm dumped up to 3.25-inch diameter hail, larger than baseball size, in northern Tarrant County, north of downtown Fort Worth. The NWS estimated the hail swath to be just under 50 miles long from near Weatherford to near Flower Mound.

Numerous car windshields were shattered in Keller. One huge hailstone even crashed through a skylight of a metro home.

The supercell also prompted tornado warnings, with damage reported near the town of Azle.

If that wasn't enough, a third supercell thunderstorm hammered Norman, Oklahoma, Wednesday night.

Driven by wind gusts around 70 mph, this hail of baseball size or larger shattered windows, smashed windshields, punched through the ceiling of a Walmart store, and even injured one person caught outside.

You can get a feel for the danger of these wind-driven hailstones in this short video NOAA Storm Prediction Center forecaster Evan Bentley captured in Norman.

Another incredible video posted to social media by Nick Smith from KOCO-TV resembled a landfalling hurricane, not an Oklahoma hailstorm.

Likely a Billion-Dollar Disaster

While it will be some time before final tallies are tabulated, this hailstorm trifecta over populated areas will be very costly.

Particularly notable about this case: the striking of three cities at almost the same time.

Radar estimation of hail tracks from 5 p.m. through 10 p.m. CDT, April 28, 2021. Arrows denote the three separate hailstorms.

Hail is consistently one of the most damaging weather phenomena every year.

"Over the past few years, according to industry sources, we've seen $8-10 billion in insured and agricultural losses annually from hail alone," Wood told weather.com in 2019.

There were 4,611 reports of large hail – at least the size of quarters – in the U.S. in 2020, with at least one such hail report in each of the Lower 48 states, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

Texas leads the nation in hail events larger than baseball size, according to data compiled by research meteorologist Jared Rennie and NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. Texas averaged about six to seven reports of hail softball-sized or larger each year since 1950, according to NOAA's storm events database.

Last May, hail as big as baseballs in South Texas, including parts of the San Antonio metro, caused an estimated $1.4 billion in damage, according to NOAA.

In mid-April 2016, hailstorms in both the Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio metros inflicted an estimated $3.9 billion in damage, with hail up to the size of grapefruits.

These costly thunderstorm events appear to be increasing.

According to NOAA, billion-dollar severe thunderstorm events, which include tornadoes, hail and damaging winds, have increased from an average of two to three per year from 2000 through 2009 to about seven per year in the 2010s.

U.S. billion-dollar weather disaster events and cost by event type from 1980 through early 2021. Severe thunderstorm events (in green), make up the majority of these disasters and have become more frequent.

In 2020 alone, there were 13 such billion-dollar severe thunderstorm events, the most in any year since 1980, including the $11.2 billion Midwest derecho in August.

Population growth and expansion of urban areas is a predominant reason for the rapid increase of these costliest thunderstorm damage events, according to Steve Bowen, a Chicago-based meteorologist also working in the insurance industry, using Dallas-Fort Worth as an example.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.