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Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
Daywatch: Climate change is producing larger hail, researchers warn
Good morning, Chicago. During severe thunderstorms, rising air shoots icy pellets the size of Dippin' Dots ice cream into the bitter cold of upper atmospheric layers. There, supercooled water freezes onto the small particles to form hail, which then falls when it gets too heavy for the storm's upward draft. As climate change warms average global temperatures, hailstones larger than pingpong or golf balls will become more frequent — likely worsening the weather hazard's already billions of dollars in annual property damage across the country, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 'Climate change is obviously occurring,' said Victor Gensini, a meteorologist and professor of atmospheric science at Northern Illinois University who led the study. 'The question, for scientists, is often: How does that manifest itself (in) these smaller-scale extreme weather perils?' Insurance companies have reported rising hail damage claims from homeowners due to severe storms. In 2024, roof repair and replacement costs totaled nearly $31 billion across the country, up almost 30% from 2022, according to an April report from Verisk, a risk assessment and data analytics firm. Hail and wind accounted for more than half of all residential claims. Read the full story from the Tribune's Adriana Pérez. Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including: how neighborhood ties still propel violence in a changing Cabrini-Green, the best and worst from the City Series and our guide to Lollapalooza 2025. Today's eNewspaper edition | Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History The U.N. General Assembly is bringing high-level officials together this week to promote a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict that would place their peoples side by side, living in peace in independent nations. Israel and its close ally the United States are boycotting the two-day meeting, which starts today and will be co-chaired by the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. The United States and the European Union agreed to a trade framework setting a 15% tariff on most goods yesterday, staving off — at least for now — far higher imports on both sides that might have sent shockwaves through economies around the globe. Gov. JB Pritzker and his fellow Democrats have been unrelenting in their criticisms of the tax and spending plan President Donald Trump signed July 4. But along with much-lambasted cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and education, the budget reconciliation plan Republicans pushed through Congress this summer includes a tax change that Democrats as well as some Republicans in high-tax blue states have backed for years. Julia Tate was headed to bed a few weeks ago when her daughter burst into their rowhouse screaming. Tate's cousin, Devon LaSalle, had been shot. The family had urged LaSalle to not come around the neighborhood so much, but he grew up in a now-closed part of the Cabrini-Green rowhouses. He still spent a lot of time there in spite of how much had changed since he was a kid on Mohawk Street. At 41, LaSalle was one of many people who stuck around the rowhouses even as development exploded around the now-vacant lots where the infamous high-rises once stood. The rhythmic rumble of the 'L' isn't a death rattle — yet. But Chicago's public transit systems are set to get gut-punched early next year by a funding deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If state lawmakers don't agree to allocate more money to public transit, branches on half of the CTA's 'L' lines could go silent. So many bus routes would get slashed that Chicago would have fewer of them than Kansas City. Metra trains could be spaced one or even two hours apart, depending on the day of the week. A man accused of entering a Walmart in Michigan and randomly stabbing 11 shoppers before being detained by bystanders in the store parking lot is expected to face terrorism and multiple assault charges, authorities said yesterday. Another intriguing City Series, along with Dick Allen's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, highlighted a fun baseball weekend for Chicago Cubs and White Sox fans. Paul Sullivan details the best and worst from the City Series and Dick Allen's posthumous induction into the Hall. Overshadowed by much of the hand-wringing done this offseason regarding the Bears' depth — or lack of — when it comes to pass rushers was a discussion of how the new scheme will affect the players on the roster, writes Brad Biggs. In the early hours of July 31, 1985, Tommy Trotter thought he smelled smoke. 'I'm a light sleeper,' he told the Tribune. 'I went downstairs to check out the kitchen and it got stronger.' He could hear 'cracking' in the ceiling. The director of racing at Arlington Park racetrack in Arlington Heights, Trotter and his wife and son were staying on the second floor of the Horseman's Lounge in the posh Post and Paddock Club. He woke up his wife, sent his son to notify security, and told the switchboard operator to call the fire department. Imagine heading out to pick up your father's medicine at the neighborhood CVS one day, only to be stopped by four strangers who ask: 'Can I take a picture with you?' That's was what happened to Kriston Bell, 17. When approached, the Beverly resident asked if they knew him from somewhere. Their response: 'From 'America's Got Talent.'' The admirers took pictures to share with their kids. Lollapalooza returns to Grant Park, bringing another stellar lineup of artists that captures the current musical zeitgeist. This year's festival showcases an impressive blend of breakthrough acts and established favorites, with headliners like Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Tyler, the Creator.
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Damaging, golf ball-size hail will fall more frequently because of climate change, Illinois researchers warn
During severe thunderstorms, rising air shoots icy pellets the size of Dippin' Dots ice cream into the bitter cold of upper atmospheric layers. There, supercooled water freezes onto the small particles to form hail, which then falls when it gets too heavy for the storm's upward draft. As climate change warms average global temperatures, hailstones larger than pingpong or golf balls will become more frequent — likely worsening the weather hazard's already billions of dollars in annual property damage across the country, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 'Climate change is obviously occurring,' said Victor Gensini, a meteorologist and professor of atmospheric science at Northern Illinois University who led the study. 'The question, for scientists, is often: How does that manifest itself (in) these smaller-scale extreme weather perils?' Insurance companies have reported rising hail damage claims from homeowners due to severe storms. In 2024, roof repair and replacement costs totaled nearly $31 billion across the country, up almost 30% from 2022, according to an April report from Verisk, a risk assessment and data analytics firm. Hail and wind accounted for more than half of all residential claims. State Farm is raising homeowners insurance rates in Illinois by 27.2% beginning Aug. 15, according to a filing with the state last month. The rate hike, one of the largest in the state's history, will affect nearly 1.5 million policyholders. In addition, State Farm is implementing a minimum 1% deductible on all wind and hail losses, raising the out-of-pocket costs for homeowners filing a related damage claim. State Farm said its Illinois homeowners business has seen 'unsustainable' losses in 13 of the last 15 years and cited more frequent extreme weather events such as wind, hail and tornadoes, insufficient premiums to cover claims and the rising cost of repairs due to inflation. Last year, State Farm customers in Illinois reported $638 million in hail damage, ranking the state second after Texas. In May, roughly 100 researchers — including Gensini and other NIU scientists — kicked off the world's largest-ever coordinated effort to study hail in and around the Central Plains. But 'we will go wherever the storms are,' he said in a previous interview. The work is being supported with $11 million from the National Science Foundation and aims to improve forecasts of severe, damaging hail using data collected through technology such as drones, weather balloons, meteorological instruments that measure hailstone size and strike impact, and more. Better detection and prediction would allow people to protect themselves, their property and their livelihoods, preventing millions of dollars in losses. Between mid-May and the end of June, scientists tracked 28 hail events across 11 states in the Midwest, South and Mountain West. They recorded hail bigger than 3 inches in Colorado, Texas, Montana and South Dakota. Recent cuts to federal grants from the Trump administration have paused scientific endeavors in many areas, including weather forecasting, but organizers said the NIU-led study was not affected because funding was awarded last summer. Northeast Illinois has had its share of big hail this year, too. An early spring thunderstorm produced tornadoes and dropped pea-size hail across the area in mid-March; the largest hailstones reported were as big as half dollars in central Cook County. On May 15, 3-inch hail was observed in Livingston County, and 2-inch hail was also reported in northeast Lake County. Batavia was pelted by hail as big as tennis balls during a June supercell. According to the National Weather Service, for the last 30 years, the Chicago area has averaged 11 days of any size hail per year and two days of significant stones with diameters 2 inches or larger. In their study, published in August 2024, NIU researchers found that days with severe hailstorms with larger stones will increase most significantly in the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast by at least five days from mid- to late-century. 'Depending on how hard you press the gas pedal — the gas pedal being human emissions of CO2 — that has a really big impact on hail that we see and, ultimately, where it occurs,' Gensini said. 'On average, we see bigger hail, more frequent bigger hail, and we actually see less small hail.' Using a model with high-resolution mapping offered researchers new, more granular insights into the future of individual storms and their hazards compared with the data that traditional global models produce, which Gensini characterized as coarse and grainy. 'It would be like the difference of a cellphone camera from back in the early 2000s compared to what we have now,' said Jeff Trapp, professor of climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to Gensini, a warmer climate concentrates more water vapor in the atmosphere, which in turn fuels thunderstorms and makes them more robust — with stronger updrafts that can suspend bigger hailstones. 'Take a hair dryer and turn it up on end, so it's blowing air straight up,' he said. 'It's pretty easy to suspend a pingpong ball right above that hair dryer. But now, what if you wanted to suspend a grapefruit or a soccer ball? You're going to need a much stronger updraft.' Warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere would also melt smaller hailstones that fall at a slower speed, while really big stones would remain relatively unaffected. The model used in the study indicated a more than 25% increase in the frequency of large hailstones of at least 1.8 inches if planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from human activities do not significantly reduce by mid-century. In that same scenario, stones larger than 2 inches could increase by over 75% by the end of the century, and there would be fewer hailstones smaller than a golf ball, or 1.7 inches. The National Weather Service considers severe any hail bigger than a quarter or with more than a 1-inch diameter. Anything larger than 2 inches can easily damage roads, dent cars and shred crops. Stones larger than 4 inches are called giant hail, and those larger than 6 inches are called gargantuan hail. Theoretically, the maximum size could be over 9 inches in diameter, like a bowling ball. The largest recorded hailstone in the country fell on June 23, 2010, in Vivian, South Dakota. It had an 8-inch diameter and weighed 1 pound and 15 ounces. The largest hailstone reported in Illinois was about 4.75 inches, the size of a softball, and fell on June 10, 2015, near the village of Minooka, 50 miles southwest of Chicago. Having researched severe storms, their hazards and their connection with climate change for decades, the U. of I.'s Trapp emphasized the need to study potential changes in hail's seasonality, too — even though 'there's not really a hail season, but there are times of the year that are more conducive to (it).' In Illinois, that's typically during the spring and early summer. 'This is an important question, I think, ultimately, to address,' he said. 'For people who do emergency management, as an example, so that they know that in the coming years, maybe the coming decades, there might be an expectation that their activity will be enhanced during an earlier or different time of the year. And we're seeing that with severe weather in general.' No matter the changes in hail size and frequency, the NIU researchers noted that the effects of this weather hazard — mainly in the form of losses and damages — will only grow as an increasingly urbanized landscape leaves more people and their property vulnerable to the pelting stones. Gensini called hail an understudied, 'underappreciated' storm peril. According to Verisk, noncatastrophic wind and hail roof claims increased from 17% to 25% between 2022 and 2024, which the company says highlights the growing impact of these perils despite the greater focus often placed on catastrophic events. 'Tornadoes are incredibly dramatic; they can produce casualties and fatalities. You generally just don't see that with hail; (stones have) impacts (on) assets and structures, and not necessarily people or their livelihood. But the trade-off of that is hail is way more frequent, way more common,' Gensini said. 'And because of that frequency, we see way more damage and way more impact, in terms of insured losses from hail, every single year.'
7NEWS
22-07-2025
- Climate
- 7NEWS
Move over, Twisters. These storm chasers are after hail
A team of about 70 researchers, armed with high-tech sensors and specially outfitted vehicles, set out across the US this spring and summer to chase dozens of thunderstorms, hoping to unravel the remaining mysteries of how hail forms, whether hail storms are getting bigger in a warming climate and how to prevent damage. Hail is a leading cause of storm damage in the US and was responsible for tens of billions in property losses last year, according to Gallagher Re, a global reinsurance firm that tracks such data. Some previous modelling research suggests that the frequency of large hailstones striking the earth will increase with climate change. The federally funded project, known as ICECHIP, is the first comprehensive field study of hail in four decades. It is meant to fill in critical gaps in hail forecasting capabilities: connecting a storm's complex, internal dynamics to the amount and the size of hail it will produce. That data could help modellers develop better predictors of storm damage, as well as aid in developing building materials, like roofing, that can stand up to hailstones. 'We know that hail might happen today, but we don't know when, we don't know where, and we don't really know which of those storms is going to make 1-inch hail or 4-inch hail,' Joshua Wurman, a top academic storm chaser at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who is deploying the mobile radars for ICECHIP, said. 'And there's a huge difference to people on the ground, to crops, to cars, to roofs.' The chase From mid-May through the end of June, ICECHIP storm chasers travelled across the Front Range of the Rockies and the central Plains, sometimes riding in vehicles armoured against falling ice. They launched drones, released weather balloons and set up mobile doppler radars — all techniques honed by tornado chasers. As one group positioned mobile doppler radars to intercept the storm at close range, other researchers were responsible for releasing weather balloons nearby or setting out sensors to measure the size and velocity of a hail strike. During some storms, researchers released hundreds of ping pong ball-like devices called hail sondes into the tempests' path to track the life cycle of a hail stone — when it is melting and freezing, and how wind dynamics that lift and drop these chunks of ice affect their growth. Convective thunderstorms, with big internal up drafts, generate hail by circulating a mix of water and ice crystals into the freezing layers of the upper atmosphere. Hail typically forms at altitudes of 20,000 feet to 50,000 feet (6km to 15.24km), where temperatures are between minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit and 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 C to -10 C). Those same up drafts sweep hail sondes into the hail-generating parts of each storm. 'If we can track that sensor with time, we're going to, at least for a couple of these storms, understand the exact path, the exact trajectory that a hailstone takes,' Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University and an ICECHIP principal investigator, said. In an atmosphere warmed by climate change, 'we get a lot more instability', Gensini said, which researchers think creates stronger up drafts. Those stronger up drafts can support larger hailstones for more time, which allows balls or discs of ice to gain mass, before gravity sends them racing to the ground. 'It's kind of like if you take a hair dryer and turn it on its end, it's pretty easy to balance a ping pong ball, right, in that airstream,' Gensini said. 'But what would you need to balance a softball? You would need a much stronger up draft stream.' Storm modelling suggests stronger up drafts will increase the frequency of large hail in the future, even as it decreases the likelihood of hail overall. Researchers suspect small hail will decrease because its lower mass means that it will take longer to fall. By the time it's close to the surface, it has often melted down to water. 'There's this kind of dichotomy, right, where you get less small hail but more large hail in these warmer atmospheres that have very strong up drafts,' Gensini said. During their field campaign, the researchers amassed a collection of more than 10,000 hailstones in chests of dry ice to try to determine if their computer models are getting the dynamics of hail growth right. 'The hail record is kind of messy,' Gensini said of previous data, adding that observers have recorded more 2-, 3- and 4-inch (5cm to 10cm) hailstones, but it's not clear if that's because more people are chasing and finding big hail or because the atmosphere is producing more of it. Gensini said the new measurements will help researchers compare what is happening in the air to what they're finding on the ground, which should improve hail forecasts and mitigate economic losses. In many of the areas where ICECHIP is working, there's a lot of agriculture, according to Karen Kosiba, an atmospheric scientist with the University of Illinois Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets team who is also working with ICECHIP. 'It affects their crops, their machinery, getting stuff into shelter,' she said. 'There's a lot of economic ties to the weather.' The future The National Science Foundation funded ICECHIP's fieldwork, which was approved last fall before President Joe Biden left office. The future of the agency's research isn't clear. The Trump administration proposed a 57 per cent budget cut to NSF's budget, according to a budget request for fiscal year 2026. The House and Senate appropriations committees will ultimately decide the agency's budget, and both have previewed smaller cuts in early deliberations. In a statement, the White House pledged to provide 'gold standard research and data for the American People', and referred any questions about NSF's funding to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gensini said federal investments in field research are necessary to propel basic science research projects like ICECHIP at a time when climate change intensifies severe weather. Without federal funding 'there's going to be no improvement in forecasts', Gensini said. 'There's going to be no way for us to be able to detect whether or not this hailstorm is producing large hail or small hail. Our lab is outside.'
NBC News
20-07-2025
- Climate
- NBC News
Hail chasers: Meet the weather detectives trying to decipher why hail is becoming a bigger problem
The chase From mid-May through the end of June, ICECHIP storm chasers traveled across the Front Range of the Rockies and the central Plains, sometimes riding in vehicles armored against falling ice. They launched drones, released weather balloons and set up mobile doppler radars — all techniques honed by tornado chasers. As one group positioned mobile doppler radars to intercept the storm at close range, other researchers were responsible for releasing weather balloons nearby or setting out sensors to measure the size and velocity of a hail strike. During some storms, researchers released hundreds of pingpong ball-like devices called hailsondes into the tempests' path to track the life cycle of a hail stone — when it is melting and freezing, and how wind dynamics that lift and drop these chunks of ice affect their growth. Convective thunderstorms, with big internal updrafts, generate hail by circulating a mix of water and ice crystals into the freezing layers of the upper atmosphere. Hail typically forms at altitudes of 20,000 to 50,000 feet, where temperatures are between minus 22 degrees and 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Those same updrafts sweep hailsondes into the hail-generating parts of each storm. 'If we can track that sensor with time, we're going to, at least for a couple of these storms, understand the exact path, the exact trajectory that a hailstone takes,' said Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University and an ICECHIP principal investigator. In an atmosphere warmed by climate change, 'we get a lot more instability,' Gensini said, which researchers think creates stronger updrafts. Those stronger updrafts can support larger hailstones for more time, which allows balls or discs of ice to gain mass, before gravity sends them racing to the ground. 'It's kind of like if you take a hair dryer and turn it on its end, it's pretty easy to balance a pingpong ball, right, in that airstream,' Gensini explained. 'But what would you need to balance a softball? You would need a much stronger updraft stream.' Storm modeling suggests stronger updrafts will increase the frequency of large hail in the future, even as it decreases the likelihood of hail overall. Researchers suspect small hail will decrease because its lower mass means that it will take longer to fall. By the time it's close to the surface, it has often melted down to water. 'There's this kind of dichotomy, right, where you get less small hail but more large hail in these warmer atmospheres that have very strong updrafts,' Gensini said. During their field campaign, the researchers amassed a collection of more than 10,000 hailstones in chests of dry ice to try to determine if their computer models are getting the dynamics of hail growth right. 'The hail record is kind of messy,' Gensini said of previous data, adding that observers have recorded more 2-, 3- and 4-inch hailstones, but it's not clear if that's because more people are chasing and finding big hail or because the atmosphere is producing more of it. Gensini said the new measurements will help researchers compare what is happening in the air to what they're finding on the ground, which should improve hail forecasts and mitigate economic losses. In many of the areas where ICECHIP is working, there's a lot of agriculture, according to Karen Kosiba, an atmospheric scientist with the University of Illinois Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets team who is also working with ICECHIP. 'It affects their crops, their machinery, getting stuff into shelter,' she said. 'There's a lot of economic ties to the weather.'
San Francisco Chronicle
26-06-2025
- Climate
- San Francisco Chronicle
PHOTO ESSAY: Behind-the-scenes moments as hail chasers learn about pounding and costly storms
MORTON, Texas (AP) — Even when Mother Nature turns nasty, the weather extremes carry a sense of awesome beauty. About 60 scientists this spring and early summer went straight into hailstorms to better understand what makes them tick and learn how to reduce the $10 billion in annual in damage they cause each year in the United States. When three Associated Press colleagues joined the scientists for several days, they found more than just hail, strong winds, rain and science in the storm. They found breathtaking sights and sounds to share. When there are dozens of scientists — many of them students — high-tech radar, weather balloons, hail collecting devices and storms that sometimes have tornadoes in them, someone has to make sure it all goes well and no one gets hurt. For the first few weeks of Project ICECHIP that someone was Victor Gensini, Northern Illinois University meteorology professor and one of the hail team's lead scientists. Gensini and his hand-picked students guided everyone like chess pieces via a computer program called Guru in his command vehicle. But he couldn't just sit back in the SUV and let others have the fun. He would drive close to the storm, not close enough to get the car damaged because unlike the Husky Hail Hunter he didn't have protective mesh hanging over the windshield. But he would get close enough to study, direct and just gaze in wonder at storms that would take over the horizon in the Texas panhandle and nearby Oklahoma and New Mexico. The clouds themselves tell the story of a roiling atmosphere. At times dark and dangerous, sometimes they are light with visible vertical stripes indicating downpours. And then a large bulging tornado can form and inspire awe and fear. There are small twisters that can also form and turn out just as dangerous. And finally if you are lucky at the end, there's a rainbow or two. One afternoon in the Texas panhandle, the hail chasing team could gaze out and see a double rainbow and a swirling twister that didn't quite reach the ground. The clouds aren't just beautiful above the vast plains. When they frame a building, such as the one sporting the Hollis Tigers mascot in Hollis, Texas, they combine to look menacing and stark. Two teams, the Red and the Black Teams, try to go ahead of the storm to see how it develops. They release wind balloons with instruments and GPS tracking that measure moisture, wind speed and direction. Inflating weather balloons is not a simple task. As gusty winds push, students scientists they have to inflate the balloon, tie it up, connect the instrument panel which is sealed in a disposable coffee cup with a lid on it. Then it's time to release the weather balloons. It's a two-person job with one holding the cup of instruments and the other the balloon. Releasing weather balloons isn't just letting them go. It's got to be done with some care — usually a 'one, two, three' and release — otherwise the instrument cup could slam into the balloon holder as an Associated Press reporter nearly found out the hard way. Once released, the balloons can fly as high as 60,000 feet or more. Or they can never quite get off the ground if there's a tiny hole in the balloon. There's also time to gawk as well as be scientists. Black Team members Evelynn Mantia and Olivena Carlisle, both of NIU, take photos of an approaching storm they have been monitoring. And once they finish, their job is to fall back a bit and then collect hail that has dropped. A storm hits, forcing one team to take cover The Red Team also releases weather balloons to get ahead of the storm and collect hail stones afterward. But the three students also get to go a bit into the storms. Ahead of the gathering storm, Ethan Mok and Wyatt Ficek release their balloon. In the first several days of the ICECHIP campaign, the Red Team earned a reputation for pushing the envelope. And on this late afternoon into early evening in New Mexico, the team, with Mok at the wheel, showed why. After releasing their balloons they went ahead into the storm as the skies darkened. The rain started coming down. Winds began to blow. They pulled over to take some pictures of the storm taking over the horizon. As they did, a semitruck sped down the road into the storm. Mok and team members laughed, saying the truck would have to turn around. The Red Team wasn't going to turn around. Photos taken, they drove off into the storm like the truck. The skies got even darker. Winds and rain intensified. Visibility out the windshield disappeared. Somewhat reluctantly, Mok finally pulled off the tiny road and waited. They watched the semitruck come back and try to flee the storm. They vehicle shook. They stared at weather radar and outside. Over the radio, Gensini had meteorology student Katie Wargowsky radio to them to get to safety. Mok quickly complied, trying to go south and around the storm and back to the chasers' hotel. The storm had other ideas. It overtook the Red Team. Hail was coming down. Wind was whipping. Visibility was gone. Wargowsky radioed for them to pull into a gas station for safety. Mok said he wished he could but the stretch of road was remote and there were no gas stations for cover. He had to barrel through, finally making it to a fast food drive-thru as reward. Scientist hail chasers see others rushing into storms Ever since the movie 'Twister,' storm chasing has gone from a scientific pursuit to an adrenaline filled, social media-stoked touristy pastime. As the scientific team of hail hunters chased down a massive storm system near Morton, Texas, car after car of storm chasers, some with creative license plates, zipped by. At times, storm chasers dotted the side of the road, cameras at the ready. Gensini, the project ICECHIP operations chief, often had to caution his team to be watchful of the crazy driving of the tornado chasers. They could be as much of a hazard as the storms themselves, Gensini cautioned. Tony Illenden drives the Husky Hail Hunter, one of the team's prime vehicles that goes right into the storms. It has mesh hanging above the windshield to protect it from being cracked. Illenden is careful with a helmet on his head to make sure it isn't cracked from hail when he goes out in the storm. Sometimes it comes awfully close. And once it came too close smacking his unprotected hand, which swelled up for a couple days and then was better. Collecting hail is a key part of the science. So researchers, wearing gloves so as not to warm up the ice balls, pick up the hail, put them in bags and then in coolers. Then they get crushed, sliced, measured, weighed and otherwise examined. With the red plains stretching out, a storm in its sheer magnificence forms an odd looking hole in the clouds. It's a signal of danger. The lower cloud is the wall cloud, where energy and moisture flows up. The cloud then forms lower. The empty space is the dangerous rear flank downdraft, which is cooler air pushing down with great force, getting wrapped around the backside of the wall cloud, team forecaster David Imy said. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
