Video of Hail Storm in Dallas Texas
Down here in Dallas we get hail. I’m not talking about little flecks of ice like sleet… I’m talking about golf ball to baseball sized hunks of ice falling from the sky at 80 miles per hour. These things rip through roofs, destroy cars, and kill people.
Wikipedia explains hail formation like this:
Hail forms on condensation nuclei such as dust, insects, or ice crystals, when supercooled water freezes on contact. Hailstones are usually from the size of a pea to the size of a golfball.
In clouds containing large numbers of supercooled water droplets, these ice nuclei grow quickly at the expense of the liquid droplets because the saturation vapor pressure over ice is slightly less than the saturation vapor pressure over water.
If the hailstones grow large enough, latent heat released by further freezing may melt the outer shell of the hailstone. The growth that follows, usually called wet growth, is more efficient because the liquid outer shell allows the stone to accrete other smaller hailstones in addition to supercooled droplets. These winds hold the rain and freeze it.
As the process repeats, the hail grows increasingly larger. Once a hailstone becomes too heavy to be supported by the storm’s updraft it falls out of the cloud. When a hailstone is cut in half, a series of concentric rings, like that of an onion, is revealed. These rings reveal the total number of times the hailstone had traveled to the top of the storm before falling to the ground.
And when they hit in Texas they do a LOT of damage. For example, in 2006 a hailstorm caused $100 Million in damage in the San Marcos area, in 2005 a hailstorm caused $100 Million in damage near Austin, and in 1995 Dallas got hit with $1 Billion in damage!
So, a couple of weeks ago we got a little hail that isn’t really even worth mentioning, but it reminded me that in August of 2005 I had captured a few minutes of a hailstorm on video and never shared it. So, here it is now… This hail was up to about 1/2 inch in size, but believe me if it hits you it stings! It can easily break your glasses or put out an eye, and it leaves welts if you are exposed too long.
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That was nothing, though perhaps rather impressive to those who don’t see large hail on a regular basis– half-inch hail really isn’t even considered “severe” by NWS definitions. Severe hail is hail 3/4 of an inch in diameter, or about dime sized. In February of 2000, I had to make a mad dash to get my newly-purchased car under cover when we had a freak hailstorm come through the east side of Dallas on in to Garland. The hail at my house was multiple-stone chunks of ice that measured up to 6″ in some dimensions. Each individual stone within the cluster was around 2″, with some up to 3″. There were reports of football-sized chunks falling in Garland, and I saw some with my own eyes at a weather school the next day. The damage was severe in the relatively small area where the hail hit. Lots of roof damage, broken glass, pitted cars… luckily, I got my car into safety before the SHTF.
Wow that was a serious hail storm. I have never seen anything that that before. Where is Frisco TX? Is Frisco near Houston? I heard from watching TV that Houston and Galvaston got slammed hard by Hurricane Ike?
This particular hail was in Frisco, TX and the view is from my front porch.
John
where was that hail?
Holy crap, looks like raining rocks. It’s a good thing I live in California, not much of a hail where I live. Probably every couple years or so and just a few millimeters in size, lol.
dammmn thats crazy, a small part of our house has a glass roof, this thing will rip right through it! but the thing is that it doesn’t even snow where i live :) 10months sunshine, 2 months rain.
Yep! That is the storm that made my minivan the lovely, pockmarked thing it is today! LOL!
I could actually get away with just having the hood fixed, as the luggage rack hides the roof pocks pretty well.
We moved from Dallas to Alabama just over a year ago, and while we’ve had some hellatious* storms, I don’t think I’ve seen ONE piece of hail! I’ve been afraid there was a tornado coming a lot more often here, though – which I find surprising, because, I thought Dallas and Alabama were equal in that regard. Hm.
*Is ‘hellatious’ slang? Spellcheck just wasn’t helping me out a bit! Hmm…
Wow, what a hail. During the last days we had in Berlin also thunder-storms with a deluge of water. So huge that some subway stations has to be closed (article).