Hail — O'brien, Iowa

2025-04-17 · near Archer, O'brien, Iowa

Wider weather episode

In the wake of an earlier cold front passage, elevated instability up to 1500 J/kg lingered as cross-boundary flow on the low-level jet reinvigorated storms in a deeply sheared post-frontal environment. Storms in far southeast South Dakota and northeast Nebraska produced spotty large hail, with a more intense cluster of both hail (up to 2.5 inches diameter) and wind (to around 80 mph) producing storms moving through northwest Iowa during the couple hours after midnight.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.0800, -95.7400)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1256768. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.