Hail — Duval, Texas

2013-03-31 · near Benavides, Duval, Texas

Event narrative

NWS storm survey concluded that baseball to softball sized hail fell across Benavides causing damage to nearly every home and business in the town. Damage included broken windows, doors, roofs, and siding. The damage was confined primarily to the north and east side of structures. Vehicles were severely dented with large holes in windshields or completely broken out. One person suffered a head injury. The severe hail damaged 258 residences, 100 abandoned homes, and 700 cars.

Wider weather episode

Scattered severe thunderstorms developed over the northern Rio Grande Plains during the late afternoon and moved southeast into the Brush Country through the evening hours. An upper level disturbance moving out of southwest Texas and northern Mexico increased the wind shear aloft over South Texas. In combination with a very unstable air mass and a boundary collision from an inland moving sea breeze and a cold front moving south out of the Hill Country, the storms increased in intensity during the early evening hours. The storms produced large hail with one long lived supercell traveling from east of Cotulla to Falfurrias. This storm produced hail from baseball to grapefruit size causing damage in the communities of Freer and Benavides.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (27.6000, -98.4100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 440032. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.