This enormous hail, up to 4-1/2 inches in maximum diameter, is a potent reminder to avoid the hail core wrapping around the rim of the mesocyclone. Having misplaced the calipers I had then, and still today, I used a standard-sized reference object for comparison. A few minutes before, a 4-incher hit the metal strip above my vehicle’s windshield, busting a hole in the adjoining section of windshield and sending glass shards down into my lap. We later found hail up to five inches in diameter, nearly an hour after it fell in a nearby park. Look closely to see the accretion rings in a few of the hailstones, where alternate layers of clear and opaque ice were gathered by the growing hailstones as they hit patches of supercooled drops high up in the thunderstorm. Only the most extremely intense updrafts can support hail this massive before it must fall. Hail this size is capable of killing people and livestock; though nobody was known to have been hurt in this event. The supercell responsible for this hail also produced six tornadoes (five of which we videotaped, none of which we got well-exposed, in-focus slides) on a wild chase day in 1991.
El Dorado KS (16 May 91), looking S and down
37.8172, -96.8464