Hail in Chicago on Tuesday, March 31, 2026
The Storm Prediction Center logged 11 hail reports in Chicago on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, between 9:18 am and 9:37 am CDT, in 1 of the metro's 7 counties. The largest was 1.75 inches at New Lenox (Will County) at 9:34 am. NOAA radar flagged 1,749 hail signatures inside the metro that day: 226 rated a 100% chance of hail and 196 with a maximum expected size of 1 inch or more.
Where hail was reported
Reports came from 5 places in Will County, named as the National Weather Service described them.
- Ingalls Park 3 reports, up to 1.75 in
- New Lenox 3 reports, up to 1.75 in
- Preston Heights 2 reports, up to 1.50 in
- Shorewood 2 reports, up to 1.00 in
- Rockdale 1 report, up to 1.75 in
Every hail report logged that day
Times are Central Daylight Time. Sizes are in inches, as reported. The comment is the National Weather Service's text as published in the Storm Prediction Center's daily log.
| Time | Size | Place | County | NWS comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:18 am | 1.00 | 2 SE Shorewood | Will | Multiple trained spotter reports of dime to quarter size hail at and near Joliet Junior College. (LOT) |
| 9:21 am | 1.75 | Rockdale | Will | Photo shared on social media showing several large hailstones at Moen Avenue and Midland Avenue in Rockdale. The largest hailstones were approximately golf ball size. T (LOT) |
| 9:21 am | 1.00 | 2 E Shorewood | Will | Report from mPING. (LOT) |
| 9:24 am | 1.00 | Preston Heights | Will | Photo shared of hail in Preston Heights. The largest hailstones were approximately quarter size. Time estimated from radar. (LOT) |
| 9:27 am | 1.75 | 2 SSE Ingalls Park | Will | (LOT) |
| 9:28 am | 1.00 | 1 S Ingalls Park | Will | Report from mPING. (LOT) |
| 9:29 am | 1.25 | 3 SSE Ingalls Park | Will | Report from mPING. (LOT) |
| 9:34 am | 1.50 | 1 S Preston Heights | Will | Photo shared of approximately ping pong ball size hail at Route 53 and Laraway Road. Time estimated from radar. (LOT) |
| 9:34 am | 1.75 | New Lenox | Will | Multiple public reports of quarter to golf ball size hail in New Lenox. Time estimated from radar. (LOT) |
| 9:35 am | 1.00 | 1 S New Lenox | Will | Report from mPING. (LOT) |
| 9:37 am | 1.00 | 1 SE New Lenox | Will | Report from mPING. (LOT) |
What NEXRAD radar recorded inside the metro
1,749 signatures from 11 radars fell inside the metro's counties on this local date, counting every cell the algorithm rated from a 10% to a 100% chance of hail; 226 were rated 100% and 9 had a maximum expected size of 2 inches or more.
| Radar | Signatures | Rated 100% | 1 in or more | 2 in or more | Largest expected | First | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KORD | 549 | 25 | 58 | 0 | 1.75 in | 2:24 am | 8:11 pm |
| KMDW | 368 | 13 | 23 | 0 | 1.75 in | 8:29 am | 8:20 pm |
| KMKX | 192 | 46 | 26 | 2 | 2.50 in | 2:22 am | 8:12 pm |
| KILX | 153 | 43 | 27 | 3 | 2.25 in | 8:32 am | 8:09 pm |
| KLOT | 146 | 25 | 20 | 0 | 1.75 in | 2:29 am | 4:17 pm |
| KDVN | 131 | 28 | 20 | 2 | 2.00 in | 2:26 am | 8:10 pm |
| KIWX | 92 | 29 | 15 | 2 | 2.00 in | 8:57 am | 4:17 pm |
| KMKE | 84 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1.25 in | 10:40 am | 4:07 pm |
| KIND | 28 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1.00 in | 9:54 am | 4:21 pm |
| KGRR | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.50 in | 3:03 pm | 3:55 pm |
| KGRB | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.50 in | 3:47 pm | 3:47 pm |
Each radar that scans a storm writes its own signature about every 4 to 6 minutes, so one storm produces many rows and overlapping radars count it more than once. The raw rows for this day are in NOAA's Severe Weather Data Inventory.
Check an address for March 31, 2026
See, free, how many hail signatures NOAA recorded within 1, 3 and 5 miles of one address that day and the nearest spotter report. The full report is $19.
Spotter reports come from the Storm Prediction Center's preliminary daily logs, grouped here by local calendar date (Central Daylight Time) and by county: a report counts for Chicago when its coordinates fall inside one of the metro's 7 counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and Kendall counties). Radar signatures are estimates from the Hail Detection Algorithm, not measured stones; they include every cell it rated, from a 10% to a 100% probability of hail. How these pages are built.