'It Was Nuts': The Extreme Tests that Show Why Hail Is a Multibillion-Dollar Problem

"In the aftermath of major storms, Andrew Shick, owner and chief executive of Illinois-based firm Roofing USA, has driven through suburbs blasted by hail and been left stunned by the damage. Earlier this year, he visited a farm complex in western Illinois where roofs, even sturdy metal ones, were left pockmarked and perforated after 3-inch balls of ice fell from the sky. "It was nuts," he recalls. There were baseball-sized holes in the lawn, even. "I'd never seen that before.""

"There's no denying that hail is getting really, really expensive. In 2024, hail damage in the US cost more than damage from hurricanes and floods put together. That year, hail-related expenses were estimated to have reached well into the tens of billions of dollars, probably around $40 billion. Just 15 years ago, the annual cost of hail damage was less than $1 billion, says Tanya Brown-Giammanco, director of disaster and failure studies at NIST,"

Costs of hail damage have ballooned over the past two decades, reaching into the tens of billions annually by 2024. Hailstorms can perforate roofs, dent metal surfaces, and create baseball-sized holes in lawns, leaving suburban neighborhoods and farms severely damaged. Roofing contractors report increasingly extreme impacts while insurers raise deductibles, often surprising policyholders. Inflation and population growth in hail-prone regions have amplified economic losses. NIST notes a sharp rise from under $1 billion annually fifteen years ago to roughly $40 billion in 2024. Hail forms when rising storm currents carry raindrops into cold parts of a storm where they freeze and grow.

Read at WIRED