The Biggest Hailstones & Costliest Hailstorms in US History, Ranked
The biggest hailstone ever recorded in the United States fell near Vivian, South Dakota, on July 23, 2010 — 8 inches across, an 18.62-inch circumference, and nearly two pounds. That's the record object. The record events are a different list entirely: the costliest US hailstorms each ran into the billions. Here are both, ranked, and why the giants keep landing in the same corner of the High Plains.
Ask “what's the biggest hailstone ever?” and most pages give you one fact and stop. But hail records split cleanly in two, and they almost never overlap: the biggest stone and the costliest storm are different places, different years, different physics. A record stone needs one freakishly strong updraft over one spot. A record storm needs ordinary big hail to fall on a lot of expensive roofs.
So this page keeps them separate: first the record hailstones by size and weight, then the costliest US hailstorms by damage, then the reason both keep pointing at the same triangle of the High Plains. Every figure is cited — our weather archive tracks temperature, rain and snow, but not hail, so this one is built from NWS/NOAA and insurance records rather than our database.
The Biggest Hailstones on Record
US records are certified by NOAA's National Climate Extremes Committee. The Vivian, South Dakota stone is the only one to hold the diameter and weight titles at once. The world's heaviest is included at the bottom for scale.
| Where | Date | Diameter | Weight | The record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vivian, South Dakota | July 23, 2010 | 8.0 in (≈20 cm) | 1.9375 lb | The largest hailstone ever measured in the United States — 8 inches across, an 18.62-inch circumference, and nearly two pounds. A resident put it in a freezer before the NWS could certify it; NOAA’s National Climate Extremes Committee ratified the record. It holds both the US diameter and US weight titles. |
| Aurora, Nebraska | June 22, 2003 | 7.0 in | n/a | The US diameter record before Vivian — 7 inches across with an 18.75-inch circumference. It fell in the heart of Hail Alley during a violent High Plains supercell. |
| Coffeyville, Kansas | September 3, 1970 | 5.7 in | 1.67 lb | Held the US weight record for 40 years until Vivian broke it. At the time it was the heaviest hailstone ever documented in the country. |
| Gopalganj, Bangladesh | April 14, 1986 | n/a | 2.25 lb (≈1.0 kg) | The heaviest hailstone ever recorded anywhere on Earth, per the World Meteorological Organization — listed here for scale. The same storm killed roughly 90 people. |
An important caveat about “records”: the biggest hailstone that actually fell in any given storm is almost never the one that gets measured. Stones start melting the moment they land, and someone has to find the largest one, get it to a freezer, and have it verified. So the official list is really a list of the biggest stones anyone managed to save — the true maxima are certainly larger.
The Costliest US Hailstorms
A completely different list. None of the record-stone cities appear here — the costliest storms are the ones that put ordinary large hail over a dense metro full of roofs, cars and solar panels. Notice how many are in Colorado and Texas.
| Where | Date | Damage | Why it made the list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenix metro, Arizona | October 5, 2010 | ≈$2.8B (2010) / ≈$3.2B (2018 USD) | Widely tallied as the single most damaging hailstorm in US history once adjusted for inflation. A rare late-season Sonoran Desert supercell dropped baseball-size hail across the Valley. |
| Minneapolis–St. Paul metro, Minnesota | June 9, 2017 | over $2.5B | One of the costliest hail events on record for the Upper Midwest, hammering the Twin Cities suburbs with large hail and wind. |
| Denver / Front Range, Colorado | May 8, 2017 | $2.3B insured | The costliest insured catastrophe of any kind in Colorado history. It more than tripled the state’s prior hail record (the July 2009 Denver storm, ~$770M insured). |
| St. Louis corridor, Missouri | April 10, 2001 | ≈$2.0B+ | A long-lived supercell family raked eastern Missouri and southern Illinois, producing one of the costliest hail swaths of its era. |
| Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas ("Mayfest") | May 5, 1995 | ≈$2.0B total | The infamous "Mayfest" storm dropped softball-size hail on an outdoor festival in Fort Worth, injuring more than 100 people — one of the most destructive hailstorms ever to hit a major metro directly. |
| Denver, Colorado | May 30, 2024 | ≈$2B | A reminder that the Front Range keeps setting new marks: another multibillion-dollar Denver-area hailstorm less than a decade after 2017. |
| San Antonio, Texas | April 16, 2016 | ≈$1.4B | Grapefruit-size hail battered the north side of San Antonio, one of the costliest hail events in Texas history. |
| Denver, Colorado | July 11, 1990 | $625M (1990) / ≈$1.1B (2013 USD) | Softball-size hail shredded roofs and cars across metro Denver. It was the costliest hailstorm in US history at the time — the event that first put Hail Alley on the insurance industry’s radar. |
A ranking to read carefully: these figures mix insured losses with total-damage estimates, in nominal (year-of-event) dollars unless an adjusted year is shown, and they come from different sources — so the exact order is genuinely contested. By inflation-adjusted total damage, the 2010 Phoenix storm usually leads; by insured losses, the 2017 Denver storm is the costliest single catastrophe in Colorado history. What isn't contested is the scale: the worst hailstorms now cost more than most hurricanes that make landfall in a quiet year.
Why the Biggest Hail Lands in the Same Place
Look at the record-stone list — South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas — and the costliest-storm list — Colorado over and over. They're circling the same target. NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory calls it Hail Alley: the corner where Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming meet, which averages seven to nine hail days a year. Cheyenne, Wyoming — about nine hail days annually — is the closest thing the country has to a hail capital.
Two ingredients stack up there that don't anywhere else:
- High ground shortens the fall. The freezing level — the altitude where the air drops below 32°F — sits much closer to the ground over the mile-high High Plains than it does near sea level. A hailstone that forms up in the storm has far less warm air to fall through, so it reaches the ground before it can melt down to a harmless size.
- The Rockies build monster updrafts. Warm, moist air streaming north from the Gulf collides with cold, dry air spilling off the Rocky Mountains. That clash fuels violent thunderstorm updrafts — and a stronger updraft can suspend a growing hailstone longer, letting it add layer after layer of ice before gravity finally wins.
Hail itself is simple in principle: updrafts carry raindrops up into the sub-freezing part of a thunderstorm, where they freeze and grow by colliding with more supercooled droplets. The stone falls when it gets too heavy for the updraft to hold — which is why the biggest stones require the strongest storms.
Hail Is a Bigger Bill Than Most People Think
Individual record storms make headlines, but the running total is the real story. The Storm Prediction Center logged 5,432 hail events across the US in 2025, up slightly from 2024, and Texas alone accounted for 902 of them — more than Kansas (375) and Oklahoma (369) combined. The losses scale to match: State Farm, one insurer, paid more than $5.6 billion in hail claims in 2025 alone. Hail rarely kills, but it quietly rewrites property-insurance rates across the middle of the country every year.
Seen something big? If you've got a photo of a record-size stone next to a ruler or a softball, that's exactly the kind of measurement the official record depends on — the biggest ones are almost always found by people, not instruments.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the biggest hailstone ever recorded?
The largest hailstone ever recorded in the United States fell near Vivian, South Dakota on July 23, 2010. It measured 8.0 inches in diameter — about the size of a volleyball — with an 18.62-inch circumference, and weighed 1.9375 pounds. NOAA’s National Climate Extremes Committee certified it as the US record for both diameter and weight. The heaviest hailstone recorded anywhere on Earth fell in Gopalganj, Bangladesh in 1986 at about 2.25 pounds, per the World Meteorological Organization.
What was the costliest hailstorm in US history?
Adjusted for inflation, the October 5, 2010 Phoenix hailstorm is usually ranked the single most damaging in US history, at roughly $2.8 billion in 2010 dollars (about $3.2 billion in 2018 dollars). By insured losses alone, the May 8, 2017 Denver-area storm ($2.3 billion) is the costliest insured catastrophe in Colorado history. Rankings shift depending on whether you count insured or total losses and whether figures are inflation-adjusted.
Where does the biggest hail fall in the US?
The largest and most frequent hail falls in "Hail Alley," the region where Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming meet, which averages seven to nine hail days per year. Cheyenne, Wyoming — with about nine hail days annually — is often called the hail capital of the United States, according to NOAA. High-elevation freezing levels give hailstones less time to melt before reaching the ground, and Gulf moisture colliding with cold, dry air off the Rockies fuels the powerful updrafts that grow giant stones.
Can hail kill you?
It is rare but it happens. The last confirmed US hail fatality was in Lake Worth, Texas on March 29, 2000, when a 19-year-old man was struck by a softball-size hailstone. The deadliest hailstorm in recorded history struck Moradabad, India on April 30, 1888, killing an estimated 246 people. Most modern hail harm is to property and vehicles rather than people.
Keep Exploring
Hail is one severe-weather extreme among many. See how it ranks against the rest in the worst natural disasters in US history, the freezing-rain catastrophes in the worst ice storms in US history, the snow side in the worst blizzards in US history, and the violent-storm cousins of hail-producing supercells in the deadliest tornadoes in US history. Or browse every state's extremes in our weather records hub.
Sources & Method
Record hailstone dimensions are from the National Weather Service and NOAA's National Climate Extremes Committee (Vivian SD 2010, Aurora NE 2003, Coffeyville KS 1970); the world weight record (Gopalganj, Bangladesh 1986) and the deadliest hailstorm (Moradabad, India 1888) are per the WMO extremes archive. Costliest-storm figures are compiled from aggregated event records, the Insurance Information Institute (national hail-loss statistics; SPC event counts), and named news reports (AccuWeather/Fox Weather on the 2017 Denver record). Hail Alley geography and meteorology are from NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory. All sources accessed September 29, 2026. Damage figures mix insured and total losses in nominal dollars unless an adjusted year is noted, so the costliest ranking is approximate. Our own weather archive stores temperature, rain and snow but not hail, so this ranking is built from cited sources rather than our database.