Hail — Castro, Texas

2025-04-23 · near Dimmitt, Castro, Texas

Event narrative

An mPing report was received of tennis ball size hail along Texas State Highway 194 southeast of Dimmitt. At least one windshield of a storm chaser was destroyed by extremely large hail.

Wider weather episode

Scattered thunderstorms developed again on the afternoon of the 23rd in the absence of meaningful large scale forcing for ascent. Moisture in the lowest levels of the atmosphere continued to increase through the day resulting in a very unstable atmosphere by mid-afternoon. Veering of relatively weak winds through the atmospheric column resulted in organization of thunderstorms which were able to produce very large hail and damaging wind gusts. Reported hail was as large as 3.50 inches in diameter near Dimmitt (Castro County). Additionally, wind gusts up to 79 mph were also reported by the Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet. The relatively slow storm motion and intense rain rates also resulted in pockets of very heavy rainfall that induced flash flooding.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.4886, -102.2455)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1242305. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.