Hail in Johnson County, Iowa

A 15 minute "rain" of baseball sized hail caused $30 to $50 million dollars of damage. One insurance agent said "this was the worst storm since 1967." He went on to say; "everyone he insures who has a skylight now has a broken skylight." This included the skylights over the swimming pool in the downtown Iowa City Holliday Inn. The average home claim was $3500 and the average car claim was $2500. The hail caused widespread damage to individuals cars and between 300 and 500 thousand dollars worth of damage to each of four car dealerships interviewed.

A very costly hailstorm passed across northeast Iowa into extreme northwestern Illinois, bringing several waves of hail greater than 1.5 inches. While there were a few reports of tornadoes; by far the most significant damage was done by large hail. In particular the hailstorm which hit Iowa City did around 40 million dollars of damage in just fifteen minutes.