LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Hail comes in a whole variety of shapes and sizes, and some of it is more severe than others.
There’s actually a non-severe category for smaller sized hail, which for Michiganders, thankfully, is the most common size that the state experiences.
More often than not, hail can be between the size of a pea and the size of a marble, which is around half an inch or smaller.
While you’ll definitely hear the hail if it hits your roof, it won’t punch a hole through it.
Hail becomes more severe and destructive when the hail is up to one inch in diameter or quarter sized hail.
Grapefruit, (yes, grapefruit-sized) hail is around four and a half inches in diameter. That’ll do a whole lot of damage but, thankfully, because it’s large, it’s also very rare.
Fun fact: if you ever want to take a picture of hail while giving a good size estimate, take a picture of the hailstone with a baseball.
During its formation, a hailstone is spinning up in a cloud, accumulating layers of ice.
That’s not the only way that hailstones can form though.
Hail can also form by having smaller hailstones congeal on the surface of a larger hailstone, creating some interesting shapes of hail.
To see 3D printed hail models and all of the possible shapes they can come in, watch the video in the player above.
