Small-Scale Variability of Hail and its Significance for Hail Prevention Experiments

Abstract

Studies of small-scale variability of hailfall parameters are being pursued using fine-scale networks of passive hail sensors of various designs. These studies have revealed the great variability which exists in objective hail parameters over very short distances. The objective of the fine-scale measurements is to eventually produce a statistical hailstreak model with which to assess the uncertainty produced by making areal hail estimates with coarse networks as part of hail prevention experiments. An example of such an assessment for a single hailstreak crop-loss pattern illustrates the problem and demonstrates that, for the particular damage pattern used, a square grid with 1 mi spacing would estimate the areal damage within 25% accuracy 80% of the time.