Hail in Des Moines on Wednesday, July 31, 2024
The Storm Prediction Center logged 5 hail reports in Des Moines on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, between 1:53 am and 2:37 am CDT, in 2 of the metro's 6 counties. The largest was 1.25 inches at Des Moines Int Airport (Polk County) at 2:14 am. NOAA radar flagged 557 hail signatures inside the metro that day: 178 rated a 100% chance of hail and 159 with a maximum expected size of 1 inch or more.
Where hail was reported
Reports came from 5 places in Dallas and Polk counties, named as the National Weather Service described them.
- Des Moines 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Des Moines Int Airport 1 report, up to 1.25 in
- Urbandale 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Waukee 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Windsor Heights 1 report, up to 1.00 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:53 am | 1.00 | 2 ESE Waukee | Dallas | Torrential rain... est S winds at 45-50mph and qtr size hail right now... 2 mi. SE of Waukee. (DMX) |
| 2:14 am | 1.25 | Des Moines Int Airport | Polk | Mostly penny to quarter sized hail... a few up to half dollar sized. (DMX) |
| 2:20 am | 1.00 | 2 E Urbandale | Polk | Report from mPING: Quarter (1.00 in.). (DMX) |
| 2:34 am | 1.00 | 1 NE Windsor Heights | Polk | (DMX) |
| 2:37 am | 1.00 | 3 NE Des Moines | Polk | (DMX) |
What NEXRAD radar recorded inside the metro
557 signatures from 3 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; 178 were rated 100% and 17 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KDMX | 286 | 67 | 78 | 5 | 2.25 in | 12:15 am | 9:40 pm |
| KOAX | 206 | 98 | 76 | 12 | 2.50 in | 12:17 am | 9:49 pm |
| KDVN | 65 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 1.25 in | 2:34 am | 9:48 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 July 31, 2024
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 Des Moines when its coordinates fall inside one of the metro's 6 counties (Polk, Dallas, Warren, Madison, Jasper and Story 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.