The State of US Hail 2026

A note on coverage

2026 is StormyLeads' first season of comprehensive, near-real-time US hail monitoring, so this report describes the 2026 season as observed and deliberately makes no year-over-year comparison — earlier years in our catalog are partial backfills, and comparing them would mistake our expanding coverage for a change in the weather. Every figure is detected from public NOAA reports and reproducible on the live hail-data hub. Method: how we detect and score hail.

Key findings

• • 19,156 US hail events detected in the 2026 season.
• • 1,960 reached 2″+ (vehicle/roof-damaging); 49 were giant hail (4″+), softball-sized or bigger.
• • The largest hailstone measured 5.54″ — in Maine on May 22, 2026.
• • Five Great Plains states — Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma — produced 10,025 events (~52%) of all US hail.
• • The season's defining outbreak hit around April 27, 2026 — 882 hail reports in a single day.

Where hail hit hardest

The biggest hailstones of 2026

For scale: 1″ = quarter (damage threshold) · 2.75″ = baseball · 4.5″ = softball · 5.5″ ≈ grapefruit.

The biggest outbreaks

When hail struck

2026 US hail events by month — the classic quiet winter, March ramp, and April–June peak.

What it means for repair crews

Every two-inch-plus storm above left dented vehicles and damaged roofs — and a narrow window before the work goes to whoever shows up first. StormyLeads ranks each storm 0–100 by Work Score and estimates its repair-market value, so PDR and roofing crews know which storm is worth the drive.