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Largest hail stone in the US?

 Images Hailstonnnnnn  Images Hailrooof
According to the Weather Channel, this is the country's largest hail stone. It's 8 inches in diameter and weights approximately 2 pounds. It fell in Vivian, South Dakota, during a hailstorm that apparently left damage like that seen in the image above right. "Record breaking hail"

34 Comments Add a comment

InsertFingerHere #1 12:18 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

2nd pic looks like a fist of victory , from the guy you keep locked in your shed.

There must be a theoretical maximum these things can get, no?

GreatRewards #2 12:23 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

"There must be a theoretical maximum these things can get, no?"

Are you talking about sheds, or fists?

Gutierrez replied to comment from GreatRewards #3 12:30 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply
cornellbox #4 12:33 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

The 'damage' picture looks completely artificial. The surrounding shingles are too clean and unbent. Something heavy punching a hole in a real roof deck, either plywood or OSB, would likely cause much more separation and tearing, rather than a regular round hole with cartoon edges. I'm an architect, not a roofer, but I can tell you that shingles don't tear like that.

Brainspore #5 12:33 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply
There must be a theoretical maximum these things can get, no?

Does that comet from "Deep Impact" count?

Prufrock451 #6 12:39 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

I for one welcome our new sky-ice masters.

badc0ffee #7 12:43 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Yeah, the picture on the right looks like someone cut a hole to install a new vent. The shingles are in good condition so they wouldn't break that way from a hail impact.

Halloween Jack replied to comment from InsertFingerHere #8 12:47 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

"I still live, you ice-flinging sky bastards! Ha-ha!"

MiG39 #9 12:50 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

I call bullshit.

MacMarty15221 #10 12:55 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Uhh, having a short attention span today, are we?

"leaving damage _LIKE_ that that seen in the image above right"

Beware.. falling rocks of water! THAT is the story here.

Anon #11 12:55 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Oh god, that picture on the right made me think of goatse

Lobster #12 1:06 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

I'm no expert, but it looks like that is actually a cluster of smaller, marble-sized hailstones. If you're looking for some kind of record I think they take that into account.

cinemajay #13 1:18 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

That pic on the right is about go insta-meme.

cecropia #14 1:20 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Anyone watch the linked video? My favorite part is when they use an empty Budweiser can to show the size of the crater left behind from the hail.

mac #15 1:25 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

That's a frozen ball of piss from a 757.

bklynchris #16 1:35 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Don't know about you all, but that fist pic is way cooler than the hail stone!

Anon #17 1:41 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Hail-se

Joe The Wizard #18 2:08 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Don't make me mad or I will punch a hole in your shed too, buddy.

Anon #19 2:39 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

>this is the country's largest hail stone
Nuh-uh. One fell on a field in King County, WA last week that was 1/2" bigger diameter, but no one was around to find it and take a picture of 'damage' like the dent it caused.

kromekoran replied to comment from cinemajay #20 2:55 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

roof fist is helping you masturbate?

Anon replied to comment from Anonymous #21 3:03 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Am I the only one who sees goatse?

I think it's the ring that does it. I can't get that out of my head. Somehow that second picture is wrong wrong wrongity wrong.

straponego replied to comment from Anonymous #22 4:16 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Thank you. These stories about "the largest hailstone/star/supernova/penis/planet/fish/turd/whatever" always annoy me a bit. Few of these things are observed or measured more than fraction of a percent of the time. But I try to keep these feelings in the pedantry, where they belong.

jungletek #23 4:23 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Second picture is what the fist of an angry god might look like.

Cowicide #24 5:52 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply


More fun from the effects of global climate change....


Get used to it.

petrock #25 6:51 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

That's not the largest hail stone.There was one that apparently the size of a basketball that destroyed a woman's roof, but the difference between that and this was the damaged caused was probably a lot more. Plus that hole looks smaller than the actual hail stone.

asuffield #26 9:20 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

Hailstone is bigger than hole; stock photo fail.

When did boingboing start posting "world's largest ?" stories? It's a lump of ice. I've seen bigger ones in the back of freezers. "World's largest unicorn" would be worthy of posting; this one is just sad.

David Pescovitz #27 11:49 PM Friday, Jul 30, 2010 Reply

I don't know whether the roof damage was caused by that specific hailstone or not. I've clarified the post so as not to imply that. If you click through to the Weather Channel, you will see that they are screengrabs from a Weather Channel video. I dunno, but I'd think that the Weather Channel would be a pretty reliable source of information about, er, the weather. But as I'm sure most hailstones aren't measured, I decided to add the question mark to the headline whereas the Weather Channel declared it as fact.

loonquawl replied to comment from asuffield #28 12:02 AM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 Reply

' "World's Largest" 2000' brought no clear hits, but the year 2001 featured at least one. From then on, every year had several.

loonquawl replied to comment from David Pescovitz #29 12:10 AM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 Reply

How about a new sign for: 'Other people shout it, i have no idea, and no way to acertain it, but without the histrionics it would look bland, so i'll go with it'

I propose

World's Largest Hailstone

grimatongueworm #30 5:27 AM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 Reply

Rooftop goatse in 3..2..1

loonquawl replied to comment from loonquawl #31 5:55 AM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 Reply

Fun fact: 'smaller than' signs and everything behind them are shot down by the forum software..., so that sign is out of the question...
Next try:
World's Largest Hailstone [!](?)

t3hmadhatter #32 6:21 AM Saturday, Jul 31, 2010 Reply

Fake, you say? Okay, drop a huge chunk of ice from outside the breathable atmosphere directly onto a similarly shingled roof. Then we can call definite BS.

enolagray #33 11:18 PM Monday, Aug 2, 2010 Reply

And David Letterman began his broadcast career as a weatherman who entertained the locals by predicting "hail the size of canned hams". We're getting there.

Anon replied to comment from cornellbox #34 3:06 AM Saturday, Aug 7, 2010 Reply

"The surrounding shingles are too clean and unbent."
U got to remeber theys thing travel at high rates of speed some thing that size falling 30K ft or high must be doing between 100 and 200 miles per hour on impact

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