Hail the size of grapefruit shattered car windows in Johnson City, Texas. In June, 2024, a storm chaser found a hailstone almost as big as a pineapple. Even larger hailstones have been documented in South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska. Hail has damaged airplanes and even crashed through the roofs of houses. Hail begins as tiny crystals of ice that are swept into a thunderstorm's updraft. As these ice embryos collide with supercooled water ' liquid water that has a temperature below freezing ' the water freezes around each embryo, causing the embryo to grow. Supercooled water freezes at different rates, depending on the temperature of the hailstone surface, leaving layers of clear or cloudy ice as the hailstone moves around inside a thunderstorm. If you cut open a large hailstone, you can see those layers, similar to tree rings. Rotating, long-lived, severe thunderstorms called supercells tend to produce the largest hail. In supercells, hailstones can be suspended for 10-15 minutes or...
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