{"id":908,"date":"2026-06-01T21:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=908"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:00:18","slug":"a-warmer-world-creates-bigger-and-more-damaging-hailstones-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=908","title":{"rendered":"A warmer world creates bigger and more damaging hailstones, study says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/span>A warmer world will likely make bigger and more damaging hail, a new study said.<\/p>\n

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Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels should make more high-energy unstable air, which is conducive to hail forming, so global storms pelting roofs, cars and the ground with hail bigger than a large marble will increase between 38% and 47% by the end of the century, depending on how much heat-trapping gas the world spews, a study in Wednesday\u2019s journal Nature said. Storms that produce smaller hail will shrink by 4% to 8%, researchers found.<\/p>\n

Hail generally doesn\u2019t kill people, but it is expensive. It already costs the U.S. about $10 billion a year and around $80 billion globally, said study co-author John Allen, a meteorology professor at Central Michigan University.<\/p>\n

Hail does more damage than tornadoes and generally costs \u201cmore than a couple hurricanes a year now,\u201d Allen said from Guymon, Oklahoma, before he ventured out with scientists who drive into the heart of hail storms to figure out what makes them tick. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen record hailstones in recent years. I find this extremely concerning because we\u2019re not really building our environment to be resilient to hail. We don\u2019t include this in our design standards, for example, for built homes in the U.S. or indeed internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen\u2019s computer simulations show the mix of larger stones will grow with climate change. Those are the ones that cause more damage, he and outside scientists said.<\/p>\n

Bigger stones mean bigger problems<\/h2>\n

Bigger stones weigh more and fall through the air faster to hit with more power.<\/p>\n

While small hail can damage crops, large hail around 2 inches (5 centimeters) diameter \u201ccan cause major damage to vehicles, roofs, solar panels, and other infrastructure,\u201d said Andreas Prein, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, who wasn\u2019t part of the study.<\/p>\n

One hole on a roof from a single hailstone can be patched, but many large stones hitting that roof usually means an expensive roof replacement, Allen said.<\/p>\n

What happens is there\u2019s more water vapor in a warmer atmosphere \u2014 nearly 4% more per degree Fahrenheit (7% per degree Celsius) \u2014 and \u201cthat increases the energy in the atmosphere and so we tend to get end up with stronger updrafts,\u201d Allen said. \u201cAnd that leads to more thunderstorms with updrafts capable of producing hail.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But with warmer air, there\u2019s less cold as high up for smaller hailstones and they tend to melt more, where bigger ones don\u2019t, Allen said.<\/p>\n

Previous studies have mostly focused on hail in the United States \u2014 which has the most hail \u2014 and didn\u2019t do the three-dimensional modeling of hail formation that the new study has done with lead authors out of China, Allen said. Other studies have looked at potential increase in frequency instead of size.<\/p>\n

Hail is a global problem<\/h2>\n

Argentina, Europe, Canada and the U.S. Northern Plains will likely see the biggest increase in larger hail, while parts of the tropics should see a reduction because of smaller stones melting, Allen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHail is not just a U.S. problem,\u201d Allen said. \u201cYes, we do see large losses here, but the global hail losses seem to be something that is really spiraling in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Study authors looked at hail bigger and smaller than 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) in diameter, which is somewhere between a marble and golf ball, and about the size of a U.S. 50-cent coin. The team looked at three scenarios based on carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas. In a slightly optimistic scenario of not so much carbon pollution, larger hail increases by 38%. In a more pessimistic scenario, where temperatures rise nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) even warmer than the other scenario, larger hail jumps by 47%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a meaningful climate signal,\u201d said Walker Ashley, a Northern Illinois meteorology professor who wasn\u2019t part of the study. \u201cBut disaster losses are not driven by the peril alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

As more people, more houses, more solar farms and more infrastructure move into areas prone to hail, the risk and damage increases, Ashley said. He added: \u201cClimate change may be increasing the potential for larger, more damaging hail in some regions, but the future loss signal will also depend heavily on where people build, what they build, how resilient those structures are, and how land use changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Borenstein writes for the Associated Press. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study says the size and damage from hailstones will increase in a warming world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate"],"yoast_head":"\nA warmer world creates bigger and more damaging hailstones, study says - California Relocation Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=908\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A warmer world creates bigger and more damaging hailstones, study says - California Relocation Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new study says the size and damage from hailstones will increase in a warming world\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=908\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"California Relocation Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-01T21:00:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b85b48ca4c2015dd056e0e9c18912121\"},\"headline\":\"A warmer world creates bigger and more damaging hailstones, study says\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-01T21:00:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908\"},\"wordCount\":782,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/c96d683a3e32b7aa3d2030faa3a2e1fb-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Climate\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908\",\"name\":\"A warmer world creates bigger and more damaging hailstones, study says - California Relocation Journal\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/c96d683a3e32b7aa3d2030faa3a2e1fb-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-01T21:00:18+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=908#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/c96d683a3e32b7aa3d2030faa3a2e1fb-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/c96d683a3e32b7aa3d2030faa3a2e1fb-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"FILE - A hailstorm is visible from Northern Illinois University's Husky Hail Hunter vehicle during a Project ICECHIP operation June 6, 2025, in Levelland, Texas. 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