09/21/2026
WHEN IT'S AS LARGE AS A GOLF BALL, TAKE COVER.
The easiest way to convey the size of hail is to compare it to everyday objects.
Hail that’s 1 inch in diameter is the size of an American quarter.
Hail that’s 1.5 inches in diameter is the size of a ping pong ball.
We call hail golf ball size when it reaches 1.75 inches in diameter—and this is when it gets extremely dangerous.
Baseball-size hail is 2.75 inches in diameter, large enough to leave a divot in the ground and sound like fireworks when it slams down.
When it reaches the size of a grapefruit (4 inches) or softball (4.5 inches), you should probably head underground until the storm moves on. Luckily, these monsters are rare:
Hail the size of a grapefruit or larger accounted for just 0.5 percent of all the hail reported during the past 60 years.
Back in July 2010, a small town in South Dakota saw the largest hailstone ever recorded. It fell in the town of Vivian, measuring a whopping 8 inches in diameter and weighing in at nearly 2 pounds. For some perspective, that's nearly the size of a volleyball. The supercell that produced that behemoth also spawned a small tornado and caused wind gusts of up to 80 mph.
