Jonathan Erdman
A massive hailstone from a supercell thunderstorm in eastern Colorado last August was confirmed as a new state record, the latest example in a prolific summer for giant hail in the United States.
The hailstone was found by stormchaser Dan Fitts outside the town of Kirk, near the border with Kansas about 125 miles east of Denver on August 8.
Fitts used a caliper to measure the hailstone to be 5.25 inches in length. That's larger than the diameter of a softball, grapefruit or DVD.
Fitts then stored the hailstone in a freezer and delivered it to the nearest National Weather Service forecast office in Goodland, Kansas.
This record has an asterisk, however. When all-time state records are potentially topped, an ad hoc committee of climatologists and meteorologists meets to ensure measurements were done properly. If so, that record is officially accepted.
In this case, Colorado's state climatologist - Russ Schumacher - and meteorologists from the National Weather Service and hail experts from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety examined the hailstone six days later.
What they discovered was the hailstone had melted somewhat from when it was first discovered by Fitts to when it first arrived at NWS-Goodland that evening. Measurements for diameter, weight and circumference all came in lower than the state record stone from 2019.
However, the committee took Fitts initial diameter measurement into account given it was of high quality and made immediately after the stone was found.
In their final report issued Sept. 19, the committee concluded a new state record hailstone diameter was set, but the 2019 hailstone still holds the state record for circumference and weight.
(MORE: America's 'Hail Alley')
As above, the hailstone recovered by Dan Fitts in eastern Colorado on Aug. 8, 2023, with an overlay of a model of the state's previous largest diameter hailstone from Aug. 2019 in yellow.An outbreak the day before was also a huge hail generator. During a severe weather outbreak on August 7, hail up to 4.75 inches in diameter in Caroline County, Virginia, was the state's largest in 55 years and nearly matched their unofficial state record.
A 4-inch-diameter hailstone was also found near Clear Spring, Maryland.
In all, there were just over a dozen reports of hail larger than golf balls in Maryland and Virginia during the outbreak, a bizarre occurrence for early August in the mid-Atlantic states.
(MORE: The Underrated Danger Of Hail)
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been an incurable weather geek since a tornado narrowly missed his childhood home in Wisconsin at age 7. Follow him on X/Twitter, Facebook and Threads.
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.
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