SIGNIFICANT HAIL EVENT
FAIRFAX COUNTY - ANNANDALE,VA
August 11, 2004
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The most exciting event of the month was the hail in a thunderstorm of the 11th. I have never observed such large hail in my life! We had hail stones as large as 2.5 x 3.0 inches (the average size was around 2 - 2.5 inches). They were conglomerates and far from being spherical. The maximum wind hit 50 mph at 1606 from the west. Quarter size hail started around 1610 and was followed by large hail for about one or two minutes around 1616. The storm was over in around 20 minutes. It did put some dents in our car top. We were lucky there wasn't much of the large hail and it didn't last long. Total rainfall from storm was 0.93 inches and we had 0.38 inches in 5 minutes. Maximum rain rate was 11.08 inches per hour at 1607. Rainfall at this rate lasted less than one minute but a new record rate on Davis Vantage Pro instrument. The hail also broke off one of the cups on the station’s anemometer and did much damage to tomatoes even the green tomatoes. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________


3 inch Hail 1st Image with Little Melting  - (Ref. L.Koontz)

3 inch Hail Shown with a Yard Stick for Scale  - (Ref. L.Koontz)

Hail Damage to Green Tomatoes  - (Ref. L.Koontz)

Radar Image of the Hail Storm   - (Ref. L.Koontz)

Graph of the Hail Strorm   - (Ref. L.Koontz)