CoCoRaHS -- Update

The hail stone

Within the past hour, the largest fully-documented hail stone in terms
of weight (1.94 pounds) and diameter (8.0 inches) has just reached its
final resting place at the cold lab at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.. Henry Reges of the CoCoRaHS
team had the honors of driving the 3rd leg of the relay that carried
this stone successfully (carefully packaged and packed in dry ice) from
the freezer of its finder in Vivian, South Dakota to the hail research
facility in Boulder. The stone is now in the hands of Dr. Charles
Knight who, interestingly, was already well established as a hail
specialist back in 1970 when the Coffeyville, Kansas record hail stone
was collected and documented.

The plans are to make a casting (mold) of this stone so that replicas
can be displayed at the Historical Museum in Lyman County, South Dakota
and at the Aberdeen, SD National Weather Service Office. We'll also be
posting some photos of the stone and its unveiling this AM in Boulder, CO.

Is this really the biggest hail stone ever to hit the U.S. -- well,
probably not. Chances are a bigger stone fell sometime and somewhere.
But the odds of capturing a stone this large and securing it intact are
very low. So if you ever have giant hail (and please know "giant" is
relative. In parts of the country anything over 2-3" is huge, up and
down the Great Plains those size stones occur fairly often and you have
to be in the 4-5" range to be really unusual. But anywhere in the
country, stones over 5" in diameter are rare and well worth documenting.

By the way, it was 31 years ago today (I may be off a day or two) that
Fort Collins was pummeled by large hail. I left town that day for a
camping trip in Wyoming and didn't find out about if for over a week.
Back then, the Denver Broncos had summer training camp here in Fort
Collins so the big news story was all the fancy football player cars
damaged by the hail. But the tragic part of the story was a local
fatality where a baby was struck and killed while their panicked mother
ran carrying the child to shelter. There were also several injuries --
some broken arms with people covering their heads. So please remember,
large hail is scary dangerous and deserves the greatest of respect.
Copy by: Schaffernews@Deertrailco.net Friday, July 30, 2010
Copywriters of CoCoRaHS
Picture on this page is NOT the actual Hail photo.