Perplexing chunks of ice sometimes fall from the sky. Scientists want to learn more.
Hail is more costly and destructive than tornadoes, and it's set to finally get more scientific attention this spring, with the world's largest field campaign ever devoted to studying the phenomena.
The new field study is dubbed ICECHIP, short for "In-situ Collaborative Experiment for Collection of Hail In the Plains." The project will include roughly 100 researchers who are planning fieldwork in and around the central U.S. in May and June.
The group will use a variety of instruments and techniques to study hail processes in thunderstorms in the Great Plains and Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
“As the first U.S. hail-focused campaign in over 40 years, ICECHIP aims to make a generational leap forward in our scientific understanding of all critical aspects of hail,” said study co-leader Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University atmospheric science professor, in a statement.
Hail can wreak havoc
Ranging in size from peas to grapefruits, the ice chunks can wreak havoc where they fall, including on homes, vehicles, businesses, aircraft, crops and solar panels.
“With improved detection and prediction of severe hail – and with a better understanding of hail characteristics and surface impacts – people could better protect themselves and their belongings,” Gensini said. “The enormous annual monetary losses could be substantially lessened.”
Hailstorms total cars, destroy roofs, and devastate crops, costing the United States $46 billion in 2023 — representing 60% to 80% of the losses from hail, tornadoes, wind, and lightning-caused fires combined, according to the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), Science magazine reported. "So it’s no surprise U.S. hail scientists are frustrated that their last major research campaign took place in the late 1970s," Science magazine said.
Hail alleys
The U.S. Central Plains states – and along Colorado and Wyoming’s Front Range – are two of Earth’s “hail alleys,” home to powerful thunderstorms that blast raindrops high in the atmosphere, where they freeze and grow layer by layer into hailstones.
Indeed, although Florida has the most thunderstorms, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming usually have the most hailstorms, the National Severe Storms Laboratory reports. "The area where these three states meet averages seven to nine hail days per year. Other parts of the world that have damaging hailstorms include China, Russia, India and northern Italy."
The largest hailstone ever recovered in the United States fell in Vivian, South Dakota, on June 23, 2010, with a diameter of 8 inches and a circumference of 18.62 inches.
Will researchers be looking for 'gorilla' hail?
"Youbetcha," Gensini told Paste BN. But what is 'gorilla hail'?
Coined by storm chaser Reid Timmer, "gorilla hail" is a colloquialism to describe large hail, said Brad Small, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Gorilla-size hail or large hail is considered 2 inches in diameter or greater. Severe thunderstorms can produce hail at least the size of a quarter (roughly an inch) or as large as a tennis ball and are accompanied by 58 mph winds or more, according to the weather service.
In addition to Gensini, the project’s co-leaders are Becky Adams-Selin, a hail scientist at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, John Allen of Central Michigan University and Andy Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A 'renaissance moment'
"Hail science is having a renaissance moment," Adams-Selin told the National Science Foundation, adding that not only will the project give valuable data for researchers and weather forecasters, but it will also aid insurance companies trying to set rates and mitigate damage, roofing companies, farmers and other entities affected by hail. "We are very integrated with the people who will use our science," she said.
ICECHIP researchers hope to gather data that could improve hailstorm prediction and help answer fundamental questions, such as how climate change will affect the frequency of hailstorms and the size of the stones, Science magazine said.
The project is funded by an $11 million research grant from the National Science Foundation, which was still providing the funds for the campaign as of Friday, Gensini said, despite the recent round of budget cuts at the Foundation.