The first weekend of March 2021 brought large hail and even mounds of it to Daytona Beach for the first day of Bike Week.
Viewers sent in pictures and videos of the hail pounding the pavement and mounds of small hail collecting in yards, along the beaches and in a parking lot of Publix.
In many cases, the hail looked like snow and it was a couple of inches deep in spots. The picture below is of the hail coating the ground outside of a Publix in Daytona Beach from Saturday, March 6.
This picture is courtesy of Spectrum News 13 viewer Braden Costner.
We do not frequently see hail in Central Florida, especially hail larger than an inch in diameter.
However, March through the early part of summer is when we would typically see hail events in Central Florida.
Florida “Hail Season”
Hail is most prevalent during the months of March through July, with the most hail events ever recorded during the month of May.
You may even remember a notable hail event back in 2019. Golf ball- and pingpong ball-sized hail fell in Brevard County on March 27.
Golf ball-sized hail (1.75 inches) was reported in Cocoa and Satellite Beach. Pingpong ball-sized hail (1.50 inches) fell in Merritt Island. Several cars had their windshields shattered when traveling down Interstate 95 on that day.
The Worst Florida Hailstorm
The worst and costliest hailstorm in Florida history was back in March 1992.
It was estimated to have caused $60 million-$100 million in damage.
During this event, hail the size of baseballs (2.75″) fell on the University of Central Florida.
The largest hailstone reported on this day was 3 inches in diameter. Most recently, Sanford had a report of 3-inch-diameter hail in May 2020.
The biggest hail seen in Florida was the size of a grapefruit (4.5 inches), according to the National Weather Service in Melbourne.
Why Big Hail is Not Common in Florida
In order for hail to form, you need extremely cold air higher up in the sky.
Generally, hail forms in large thunderstorms that have cloudtops several thousand feet high, usually in the neighborhood of 30,000 to 50,000 feet high.
In Florida, it is so warm that we don’t usually see hailstones fall to the ground. Strong winds pull raindrops so high into the sky that ice crystals begin to form where temperatures are below freezing.
These ice crystals collect more ice crystals and generate large hailstones.
Eventually, the hailstones become so large and heavy that they fall to the ground. The hail will melt some as it falls from the sky from the colder air above into the warmer air below.
Usually, Florida is so warm that the only hail we see is around an inch or smaller.
The most common size hailstone produced in Central Florida is dime-sized, which are about three-quarters of an inch.
So it is not at all uncommon to see hail in Central Florida; however, it is rare to see reports of golf ball- and ping-pong ball-sized hail.
