The following link is from the National Weather Service concerning the change in hail size for a thunderstorm to be noted as being severe:

www.crh.noaa.gov/dvn/?n=oneinchhail

I'm not a huge fan of this change. I could see why they might do it for the Midwest regions where bigger hail is reported, but for places like in Louisville, Jackson, and Paducah, KY, it is less likely. True it will cut down on warnings issued, but .75" size hail will do damage if there is enough of it...

Seems a bit odd? If a thunderstorm was able to produce hail of 3/4 inch then why wait until it produced 1 inch hail? Surely a particular thunderstorm would produce hail larger in abundance within the core region - perhaps not seen or recorded by chasers or the public - but does a quarter of an inch really matter considering this size will do damage anyway to crops and the like?? I don't agree with it either to be honest..raises many questions!

Here's a quote from an article:
"It`s been shown through studies that three quarter inch diameter hail by itself really doesn`t do significant damage at all to automobiles or buildings or homes," says J.P. Martin, of the Bismarck National Weather Service. "You need to get to one inch hail before you start getting any type of damage really."

This article can be found at:
http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_Stories.asp?news=27764

Anything that narrows down a criteria is probably better, but guaranteed a storm producing 3/4 is not far from producing 1inch hail.

I read the report from the link...I don't believe there's that much of a difference re damage. I've seen hail damage from hail in the sizes they mention and it's the same - doesn't it all depend also on how strong the downdraft is, direction of hail, what it impacts - not all car bodies are made of 1/4 inch steel - you could drop a small ball bearing on a panel and it would dent no problems....on the fence on this one!

I don't like that change because to me any storm that produces any sized hail and winds close to 60 mph should always be classified as a severe Thunderstorm and therefore require a Severe Thunderstorm warning for that County or City no matter what!!!!

Yeah I was reading this yesterday, I know here in Indiana we get quite a few severe thunderstorm warnings but most of them have had small hail and decent winds. I think changing this up to 1" will cause people to be caught off guard of these other storms that have smaller hail and still a decent amount of rain, wind, and Lightning.

I've been thinking about this change. It seems that hail size in the Midwest region seems to be larger than Hail in the Northeast, the warning criteria for my area is still 3/4 of an inch hail.I'm wondering if this is because of the geography, climatology, and the fact that storms in this region tend to be above 40,000 feet( for a base figure), which allows the updraft to carry the stones further up into the atmosphere. resent.After reading some of the posts, i also realized that 58mph winds and a tornado, are also in the Severe Thunderstorm Warning...I'm guessing that maybe it should be a regional criteria for hail,because some regions see larger hail in thunderstorms. Penny size hail is sort of an alert factor in my area; New England doesn't always see that much hail, as opposed to some areas in the Midwest, that have seen Golfball and larger hail size.

Seems like the criteria change is for the Central Region, but they want to make it nationwide. I think it is a good idea. I've seen 3/4 inch hail and it doesn't do much. Doesn't even hurt much. I worked outside once while it was falling.

Skywarn states in my area (NW suburbs, Mpls., MN), report all hail.

Hail = Updraft.

~Jo~