Weather Tidbits: The Rarity of Different Hail Sizes

This edition of Weather Tidbits will be discussing the rarity and severity levels of different hail sizes. On May 16, 2025, Delmarva experienced a damaging severe weather episode that produced hail up to golf ball size and nearly 2.00″. Just how rare is that? Well firstly, in order for hail to be classified as severe as defined by the National Weather Service, the diameter must be at least 1″. Garden variety thunderstorms will feature hail smaller than this. Golf ball sized hail around 1.75″ in diameter is quite rare, but not by much. Hail can be much larger than that. In very rare instances, hail can be the size of a baseball at around 2.75″ in diameter. In exceptionally rare cases, hail can even approach grapefruit size at around 4.5″ in diameter.