TEXAS (KLTV/KTRE) – NOAA’s State Climate Extremes Committee has confirmed a hailstone produced by a thunderstorm near Vigo Park, Texas in 2024, was the largest ever recorded in the state. A report published earlier this week records the hailstone’s diameter as 7.1 inches, breaking the previous Texas record of 6.464 inches.
The hailstone was discovered by Oklahoma storm chaser Val Castor on June 2, 2024, 3 miles west-northwest of Vigo Park, Swisher County, Texas. Castor told the National Weather Service in Lubbock that he saw what he thought was “a gallon jug of milk in the ditch” before turning around to get another look. “As I got closer to it, it became apparent that it was indeed a very large hail stone… I didn’t have a tape measure and about the only thing I had to compare it to was an empty monster energy drink can,” Castor said. He estimated the hailstone’s diameter to be 7.25 inches.
Hailstone in hand(Val Castor)
Images of the hailstone were shared with the National Weather Service and the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS). The IBHS, using an AI-based technique, estimated the diameter of the hailstone as 7.06 inches. Additionally, Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas state climatologist and director of the Southern Regional Climate Center, completed a photogrammetric analysis that estimated the hailstone’s diameter to be 7.16 inches (plus or minus 0.22 inches).
The recommendation of the State Climate Extremes Committee is “that the Vigo Park hailstone be accepted as the new largest diameter hailstone in the state of Texas, with a value of 7.1″.” The report also states “Given the uncertainties in all three estimates and proceeding conservatively, we regard the best estimate of the hailstone diameter to be 7.1″, with the precision of the estimate indicative of the uncertainty in the estimate. All estimates are well in excess of the current record hailstone diameter for Texas, 6.464″.”
Hailstone next to Monster can(Val Castor)
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