Latest news with #ColtForney
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
'Baseball cap-sized hail:" Near-record hailstones measured in Texas
Massive hailstones, one measured at nearly 6 inches in diameter, pummeled Texas over the holiday weekend, with storm chasers helping scientists on a mission to research big hail. On Sunday in Afton, about 70 miles east of Lubbock, storm chaser Colt Forney found a hailstone that may have been more than 6 inches in diameter-about the size of a baseball cap. ICECHIP, a project at Northern Illinois University funded by the National Science Foundation that aims to answer scientific questions about hail, measured a 5.47-inch hailstone in the same town. It was bigger than a baseball and a golf ball put together. Not to be outdone by Sunday's discovery, a 5.87-inch hailstone was recorded at Menard, Texas-about 150 miles northwest of Austin-Monday by Landon Moeller from ICECHIP. "Is this what they call the Finger of God? Massive hailstones today!! Everything really is bigger in Texas," Moeller posted on X. Texas and U.S. hail records The official hail record in Texas is 6.42 inches, set in Hondo on April 28, 2021. Larger stones were also measured last year but haven't made it into the record books yet. Even if the stone is clearly measured, it can take years for the records to be updated. A hailstone that fell in Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010, holds the United States record for the largest size with a diameter of 8 inches. How is hail measured? Hail is classified by diameter, from pea-sized, one-quarter of an inch across, to softball-sized, 4 inches across. Hail an inch or larger in diameter is considered severe by the National Weather Service. Beyond 4 inches, the stones are so unusual that there aren't officially terms to describe the size, although "grapefruit" is sometimes used to describe hail that is 4.5 inches in diameter, and "CD/DVD" penned to stones at 4.75 inches. How does hail form? When rising air in a thunderstorm, known as the updraft, lifts water droplets high into the atmosphere where temperatures are below freezing, layers of ice form on a frozen raindrop until the hailstone is heavy enough to fall to the ground. May and June are the most typical months to see large hail, with 32 reports of hail larger than 4 inches in diameter submitted to the NOAA Storm Prediction Center in May 2024 and May 2025 so far.
New York Post
26-05-2025
- Climate
- New York Post
Grapefruit-sized hail, thunderstorms put a damper on Texas Memorial Day
OKLAHOMA CITY – Memorial Day weekend plans from the Plains to the Southeast were put in jeopardy on Sunday as a slow-moving storm system pummeled communities with massive hail, damaging wind gusts and even some reports of tornadoes. Flooding was also an issue, as rounds of torrential rain overwhelmed storm drains, rivers and streams. Hail larger than grapefruits fell in Texas on Sunday evening. Colt Forney with Atmospheric Chaos said the 5.5-inch and 6-inch giant hailstones fell in Afton. Pictures show him comparing one of the hailstones to a baseball and another to a baseball hat. There were numerous reports of large hail in the Afton area, ranging from 4 to 6 inches. There was also a report of 3-inch hail in Goldsby, Oklahoma. Tens of millions of people from Texas and Oklahoma through the Mississippi Valley and Southeast were at risk of severe thunderstorms on Sunday, and some of those areas were hit hard. A video recorded in Arkansas shows the moment a bolt of lightning struck a radio tower in Fayetteville on Sunday. Pictures show him comparing one of the hailstones to a baseball and another to a baseball hat. X/@ColtForney Winds were also whipping during the storms, with an 81-mph wind gust reported in Amherst, Texas. That's as strong as a Category 1 hurricane. Some communities in Texas also reported tornadoes. According to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC), possible tornadoes were reported in Afton, Amherst, Stamford and Floyd. An incredible video captured by a storm chaser and his son showed images of what appeared to be two tornadoes spinning across the landscape in the Stamford area on Sunday. The area was under a Tornado Warning at the time the video was taken. There were numerous reports of large hail in the Afton area, ranging from 4 to 6 inches. X/@ColtForney The heavy rain also led to reports of water rescues and flooding in Missouri. A drone video recorded in Ozark, Missouri, shows neighborhoods surrounded by water after flooding due to the relentless precipitation. Water can also be seen getting dangerously close to the bottom of a bridge while the flooding was ongoing. Sunday's threat came after parts of the same regions were slammed with severe thunderstorms and flooding on Saturday, with damage to buildings reported in Oklahoma, water rescues in Missouri and storms tearing across communities in Florida.
