Hail — Howard, Texas

1996-05-10 · near Big Spring, Howard, Texas

Wider weather episode

A left-split storm moved to the NNE from Glasscock County and produced one inch hail in the Elbow community. The storm reorganized with the storm-relative inflow favoring the north side of the storm. As the storm moved into the Big Spring area the it became a left-split supercell with the velocity display from the KMAF WSR-88D showing a well-developed anti-cyclonically rotating mesocyclone. The storm moved over the eastern half of the city from the south. In southern Big Spring baseball size hail fell while over the northeastern and eastern parts of the city softball size hail was reported. Graduation ceremony was ready to commence when softball hail struck Howard College. Skylights on the coliseum roof were shattered sending glass falling onto the floor that would have been filled with candidates just a few minutes later. The largest hail was reported at the intersection of I-20 and Business I-20 as the storm exited the city to the northeast. A Boy Scout caravan of 5 vehicles was pummelled by 5 inch diameter hail. The hail knocked out every window in every vehicle.Injuries from the storm included many cuts from broken glass and from direct strikes by jagged hailstones. One hailstone broke the side window of a car and continued with enough force to break a woman's arm inside the car. About 2000 residential roofs were replaced with many of these roofs less than a year old due to the April 3, 1995 hail storm. The Big Spring storm then moved northeast to the Vincent community where softball hail was once again reported.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.2500, -101.4200)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5576664. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.