Hailstone in Polk Co. comes close to breaking state record, researchers say
POLK COUNTY (KATV) — It looked to be the size of a baseball - and likely one of the largest if not the largest hailstones to fall in the state of Arkansas. But according to researchers from South Carolina, the official measurement fell short of breaking the state record.
Lucky for scientists with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, Jason Jopling and several other homeowners in Polk County decided to save the hail that fell outside their homes last week.
"The largest I'd ever seen was marble-sized," said Jopling, recognizing the enormity of the hailstones he through in his kitchen freezer.
When IBHS researchers saw pictures Jopling's hail on social media, the crew decided to fly to more than a thousand miles to Arkansas to get a better look for themselves.
The official measurement came in at a little more than 4.5 inches in diameter - number three on the list of largest hailstones recorded in Arkansas since the National Weather Service in Little Rock began keeping records around 1950. The largest ever measured in the state was a little over five inches.
Scientists measured not just the size, but also the weight of the hailstone, in addition to creating a 3-D image of the chunk of ice to keep on file.
While the hail that fell in western Arkansas may have turned out to be less impressive than initially thought, the data collected from the hail measurements are still helping the non-profit research arm of the US insurance industry in their overall mission to help further research when it comes to mitigating property damage.
"What we want to understand more of is which storms produce those really large hailstones, which produce high-concentration hailstones," said Christina Gropp, public relations specialist with IBHS.
"So piecing together our 3-D scans with some of our other instruments, as well as radar data - putting all of those together can better help us understand hailstorms in the future."
According to Gropp, the hail that fell in Polk County may have actually been larger than it was when the stone's measurements were taken. Jopling admitted he and his kids handled the hail quite a bit before putting the hailstones on ice, something that likely caused the hail to slightly melt.
