Tornadoes Getting The Spotlight This Year. But Hail Is Causing Even More Damage

 Tornadoes have been in the news a lot this year. 

Serious hail damage to a home in Wylie, Texas back
in April, 2016. Hail is one of the leading causes of
weather-related damage in the United States.

And no wonder. There have been 1,007 tornadoes in the United States through May 26 this year.

Sixty-two Americans have so far died in twisters so far this year. So you can see why tornadoes are a BIG DEAL.

As expensive as the tornado destruction has been - and it has been expensive - there's a severe weather phenomenon that's been happening a lot this year. That would be hail. 

Hail is usually one of the most expensive type of disasters yearly, and this is no exception. 

Tornadoes, as horrible as they are, have fairly narrow damage paths. Some are as much as mile wide, but most are much less than that. Tornadoes can travel over dozens or in rare cases hundreds of miles, but usually the damage path is only at most a few miles. 

Hail storms, on the other hand, usually cover a much larger footprint of real estate. 

Hail very rarely kills people and usually doesn't completely destroy a house. But hail damaged roofs and sometimes punctures through them. Hail breaks windows, hopelessly dents or shreds siding, damages and destroys cars, trashes landscaping and decimates crops. 

Especially in cases in which hail punctures roofs, homes can suffer severe water damage. (Torrential rains usually accompany the hail).

On top of all that, hailstones have more and bigger targets to inflict harm. Over the past few years, cities - including in the hail-prone Plains, Midwest and parts of the South - have sprawled outward. These metropolitan areas have miles and miles of suburban housing developments surrounding them. 

It used to be the chances were a bad hailstorm would miss a city since it was a small target. Now, not so much. As a result of all these factors and more, hails causes up to $15 billion in damage annually.

The insurance industry is taking notice. 

As NPR reports, insurance rates are up 35 percent from a few years ago in Kentucky and Nebraska  Rates are up 34 percent in Arkansas 32 percent in Minnesota and 27 percent in Texas, Colorado and Iowa.

Hail damage isn't the only reason these rates went up but it's certainly a factor. .Like in other types of disasters hail its prompting insurance companies to cut back on coverage and the costs the storms incur.

Per NPR:

"They're going to scale back coverage primarily on the roofs,' said David Marlett, managing director of the Brantley Risk & Insurance Center at Appalachian State University. He said they will now cover the value of a damaged roof rather the cost of buying a new one. "And they're going to attempt to increase rates to match the risk."

The jury is still out on whether climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of hailstorms, There is preliminary evidence that a warmer climate could produce larger hailstones. The larger the hailstones, the more damage they cause. 

I even imagine there will be insurance claims for hail this year in Vermont.  Hailstones in Vermont are usually too small to cause much damage, but sometimes there's exceptions.  Saturday May 17 was one of them. 

Hail up to two inches in diameter - a little bigger than golf balls - struck parts of southern Chittenden County, especially around Hinesburg, St. George and Richmond. 

I'm sure those caused at least some damage.

Videos:

Hail crashes through skylights of a Texas home earlier this year. Click on this link to view, or if you see image below, click on that.

Hail crashes through skylights at a Rice Lake, Wisconsin Walmart in July, 2023. As always click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Similar but even worse scene inside a mall as hail crashed through skylight in a Wyomissing, Pennsylvania shopping mall in 2014. Again, click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that. 

Chaos in a home as hail crashes through windows in Carter Lake, Iowa on August 18, 2011. Again, click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that: 

This Is One Of The Most Expensive Storm Years In Texas. They Were Just Hit Again

 Texas just can't catch a break.

The Texas storms roll on. Yellow areas should expect
some severe storms Thursday. Dark green areas have 
a limited but still real chance of rough weather. 

Another complex of intense storms ripped through parts of the state Monday and Tuesday, causing a new round of extensive damage, flooding and power outages.  

At least one person was killed in the latest round of storms, and several injured. 

More than a million homes and businesses were without power, mostly in and near the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area on Tuesday. It could take days for power to be fully restored, reports the Associated Press.  

The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area were hit be two waves of intense storms, one late Monday afternoon, and a second a little before dawn Tuesday. 

Winds gusted to 77 mph at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.  Video on social media showed the wind shoving an American Airlines plane away from a gate.  Denton, Texas, damaged by a tornado on Saturday, endured a gust to 83 mph. 

The latest round of bad weather probably adds more than $1 billion in damages to the several billions of dollars in damage suffered in Texas spring floods.

This month started with record flooding in east Texas that forced thousands from their homes. 

Then, Houston and environs suffered an extreme thunderstorm with hurricane force winds and embedded tornadoes on May 16.

That storm caused widespread destruction and power outages, destroyed homes and blew hundreds or even thousands of windows out of downtown Houston skyscrapers. 

After that, deadly tornadoes swept through areas north of Dallas, killing seven people, injuring dozens and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses. 

On Tuesday, another round of high winds and flooding hit Houston and surrounding areas, adding to the damage from May 16 and taking down electrical power that had just been restored to many homes. 

All this is happening as most of Texas is dealing with an early bout of hot weather.  Six days this month are among Houston's top 20 hottest May days. Some Texas cities have hit all time highs for May, or all time warmest overnight lows for May. 

That makes things especially rough when the power, and thus air conditioning, aren't working. 

With two major storms hitting both sprawling metropolitan areas of Houston and Dallas, plus added tornado and hail damage elsewhere in the state, the cost of these disasters will surely cost many billions of dollars in damage. 

That's on a scale of a major hurricane. Speaking of which, the entire 367-mile Texas coast is highly vulnerable to hurricanes. Forecasters say this hurricane season will be especially busy, increasing the odds of a Texas landfall. 

In the short term, Texas is not quite done with the rough weather. Large parts of Texas are expected to see storms with high winds and giant hail today, Thursday and Friday. 

Vermont Damage Was Part Of Widespread Disruption From Varied, Destructive Wide-Ranging U.S. Storm

Satellite view of the massive storm on Tuesday.
Its cloud cover enveloped at least two thirds
of the continental U.S. and a large
part of southern Canada. 

 The giant storm that has affected huge swaths of the United States behaved pretty much as forecast, but that's cold comfort to the people who suffered loss, damage and inconvenience.  

Sure, the storm was bad enough here in Vermont. But a lot of people had it even worse. 

The storm spun off a wide variety of weather, including deadly tornadoes in the Southeast, a blizzard in the Midwest, flooding along the East Coast, widespread flight delays and power outages. 

The storm was so varied, and so widespread, affecting so many people that it was likely to become the first weather/climate disaster of 2024 to cause more than $1 billion in damage. 

CNN reported 900,000 homes and businesses without power across the eastern United States. Additionally, 1,300 flights were canceled due to bad weather. 

Fifteen tornado reports came in from the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and parts of Georgia and South Carolina. It appears the tornadoes killed two people - the first tornado fatalities of the year. Other storms caused widespread wind destruction from central Florida to North Carolina.

The storm created an atmospheric river that curled in from the Atlantic Ocean and slammed much of the eastern United States with flooding. Two to five inches of rain combined with snow melt caused widespread flooding from Maryland to Maine. 

High water in Providence, Rhode Island and surrounding areas closed highways, flooded businesses and forced evacuations. 

In Connecticut, parts of two towns along the Yantic River were evacuated after a dam partly collapsed. Several people were rescued from flooded homes and businesses.  At least two rivers in New Jersey were above major flood stage on Wednesday. 

In coastal cities, high tides blocked some of the runoff from heavy rains from flowing into the oceans. Annapolis, Maryland had its third worst flood on record last hight. 

Basically the same issue hit Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. Strong onshore winds blocked high runoff caused by heavy rains. The water backed up through the resort town 

The problem in the Midwest was snow and cold. Parts of Iowa, Nebraska and eastern South Dakota saw 12 to 15 inches of snow Tuesday.  

The next large storm that is sure to cause more damage across the United States was already causing big problems in the Pacific Northwest. The Cascade Mountains were under a blizzard warning for the first time since 2012.

Large waves crashed into the Washington State coastline.

This new storm is likely to cause largely the same problems as the last one. It'll spin off a  new snowstorm that  is forecast to hit parts of the Midwest; another severe storm and tornado outbreak is likely in the Southeast, and the Northeast is gearing up for more heavy rain and strong winds Friday and Saturday.

El Nino, teaming up with climate change, is giving the United States a challenging winter. 

Insurance Adjusters Cringe: Huge Destructive Hail Hit Three Big Metro Areas Last Night

A hole in a home's ceiling west of San Antonio,
Texas. Hail was big enough to punch through
the roof of the building and into the living room.
Photo via Twitter @vortexrfd 

Hail the size of baseballs or even bigger slammed parts of three good sized metropolitan areas last night, surely creating a very expensive disaster.  

The areas hit were the San Antonio, Texas area; Dallas-Fort Worth - especially the northern suburbs; and Oklahoma City, especially its southern suburbs around Norman. 

One person suffered a head injury near Norman as a result of the hail, the NOAA's Storm Prediction Center noted in its daily storm summary. 

Since the hail was widespread and hit populated areas, this could well be yet another $1 billion plus disaster. 

Hurricanes and tornadoes get all the dazzling news coverage, but hail is often the most expensive kind of weather in the United States. Insurance claims for hail damage routinely pile up to around $10 billion annually. 

Huge numbers of cars, windows, roofs. skylights, siding and landscaping in the three metro areas affected by the supercell thunderstorms were damaged and destroyed. Insurance adjusters are going to be incredibly busy. 

In some cases, giant hail pierced through roofs.  Social media photos from Sabinal, Texas, west of San Antonio showed holes in a home's ceiling where hail bigger than softballs crashed through the roof, attic and into the living room. 

Another image showed a Texas Honda dealership with broken windshields on all the cars on the lot. 

Photos from Norman, Oklahoma show the effects of baseball-sized wind-driven hail. Windows were shattered and window shades were shredded. 

Large hail driven by high winds, shredded
this window and window shade in Normam,
Oklahoma last night. Photo via Twitter by
@marekcornett

Near Fort Worth, one person with a sense of humor, demonstrating the size of the hail, took a photo of a cinnamon bun next to a similarly sized hailstone. 

A few tornadoes were reported with some of the hail-producing supercells, but those twisters seemed to hit more remote areas and caused relatively little damage.

Today, severe storms are a good possibility, mostly in a band from northern Mississippi up the Appalachian chain as far north as the northern suburbs of New York City.  

Weather patterns remain favorable for more severe weather over the weekend and next week over swaths of the South and Midwest.

VERMONT RAIN

The Green Mountain State won't see any hail anytime soon, but we're finally getting quite a bit of needed rain.  

Yesterday's showers produced roughly a third to a half inch of rain, with locally higher amounts. Another good slug of rain should come through later today and tonight with an additional half inch to an inch of rain 

Showers tomorrow will add a bit to the total, and more weather disturbances next week could deposit even more precipitation.

Some favored high elevation places in Vermont could see a total of up to three inches of rain over the next seven days. Most of us will probably see well over an inch in that time period. Which is great news with the current low water tables and rainfall deficit that stubbornly lingers. 

The only trouble with this is there won't be any long periods in which we can get outside in nice weather, but we'll take it.

Another problem is that dreaded "S" word. It'll get cold enough for some snow Friday night, mostly at elevations above 1,500 feet, but a few snowflakes could make it down lower in elevation than that. Some mountain peaks could get several inches of snow out of this. 

It won't be nearly as bad as the snowstorm that hit Vermont last week, though.