How to safely measure hail during a storm

How to safely measure hail during a storm

The evening.

The number to call is... 877-45-study.

"severe weather season" is upon us here in the wabash valley.

And even during those hot spring and summer days..

"large stones of ice" can come crashing down.

So, how is that possible?

Storm team 10's "david siple"..

Shows us..

How "hail" is created.

/////// anytime we have a large thunderstorm like, well this one, there will always be chances for hail.

So even with the very warm temperatures near the ground, how does hail develop?

Well lets dive right into the storm.

Every storm has updrafts which is basically air moving up into the storm.

Now lets imagine that this little light blue ball is a rain drop.

Obviously this will not be to scale but i increased the size for demonstrative purposes.

When that water droplet gets caught in that updraft, it moves up into the storm above the freezing line.

In most cases the higher up you go in the atmosphere, the colder is gets.

When it passes the freezing line, it quickly turns into ice.

The updrafts within the storm keep that ice suspended up in the cloud.

While this happens it sometimes falls back below the freezing line and the updrafts then bring it back above the freezing line again.

When the hail stone gets too heavy and it overcomes the updrafts, it finally drops to the ground as a hail stone.

In the wthi studio, im storm team 10 meteorologist david siple.

Back to you.

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