Topic: Giant hail South Dakota, USA: 21 August 2007

[Jimmy Deguara]

Hi guys,

I have access to the very video of the storm that produced the monster hailstones at Kempsey - measuring 4.5inches in my estimation - obviously the isolated larger hailstone would have fallen at some point and apparently it fell at the Kemspey Golf Course. Although they were not suggestive of 14cm hailstones, this is a record and has been kept in the database. My friend who supplied me with the hail video suggested he recalled a news paper article of a monster hailstone larger than the ones in the video! Please understand that when measured, they use the longest length as the official size even if it is pointy/jagged which is usually the case with these monsters. A weight measurement is also taken!

And by the way, I have been met with opposition in terms of placing this video online so I can only show personally.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[enak_12]

Ah thanks Jimmy very interesting. Shame about the video. I wonder if he newspaper has an archive with the picture?

[Jimmy Deguara]

Enak,

I have just found located that video on CD - goodness - some monsters on there. If there ever is a video night, I have no problems of showing it. I would not be surprised if 5 inch stuff fell in this storm although quite a few 4 to 4.5 inch hailstones lay on the lawn.

Sorry about not being able to show it online. I asked for the contact details of the people who own the video and I have also asked for my friend to ask them if I could place it online and all proceeds of sales go to them. Unfortunately, the video was given to me because I was interested in storm chasing and that's the extent of it. I know however, if it ever gets on the internet, I would lose control of it through copying and I would have dishonered my commitment. Very few have seen this fantastic clip. Someone want to organise a video night? This is one of those videos you can see 10 times and not get sick of it because you note something different.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Michael Bath]

Hi Enak,

Yes they had melted a bit - there was torrential rain for a good 10 minutes before I was able to go and collect some of the stones. I think the ones in the photos were about 7cm diameter. The storm hit South Kempsey area about 3.30pm. There was another lot of smaller hail from a second thunderstorm at 4.15pm.    btw - I just happened to be there during a trip from Sydney to Ballina.

Jimmy - goes to show I have still not seen that video!   How about showing a couple of stills?

MB

[enak_12]

Wow an even bigger hailstone was measured from the Dante SD event. Just short of the national record.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/?n=hail2007aug21_dante

[Jimmy Deguara]

Thanks for that Enak,

I was told by Macca that there was the possibility of a very large 6 inch hailstone being investigated - there you go.

You know, I recall someone mentioning in the past that the so called 6 to 8 inch hailstones mentioned in the archives of the US databases were typical American exaggeration. I think although there may be some inaccuracies, these sort of hailstone measurements back up at least in part the earlier claims. By the way, there was a hailstone measured in Missouri in the order of 6 inches in 2004 from a violent tornadic supercell there. So 2003, 2004, 2007 - not that in frequent in my opinion.

Further to this conversation - I note now that there are two distinct hailstones above the 6 inch category. A similar thing happened when the Aurora hailstone was discovered - it superceded the one found by another person.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara