Hail in Des Moines on Wednesday, April 15, 2026
The Storm Prediction Center logged 16 hail reports in Des Moines on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, between 2:00 pm and 9:08 pm CDT, in 3 of the metro's 6 counties. The largest was 2.00 inches at 1 SW Mccallsburg (Story County) at 8:46 pm. NOAA radar flagged 386 hail signatures inside the metro that day: 84 rated a 100% chance of hail and 83 with a maximum expected size of 1 inch or more.
Where hail was reported
Reports came from 10 places in Madison, Polk and Story counties, named as the National Weather Service described them.
- Winterset 3 reports, up to 1.25 in
- Ames 2 reports, up to 1.25 in
- Gilbert 2 reports, up to 1.50 in
- Mccallsburg 2 reports, up to 2.00 in
- Story City 2 reports, up to 1.25 in
- Collins 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Colo 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Earlham 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Johnston 1 report, up to 1.00 in
- Nevada 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2:00 pm | 1.00 | 1 W Story City | Story | (DMX) |
| 2:04 pm | 1.25 | Story City | Story | (DMX) |
| 3:48 pm | 1.00 | Collins | Story | (DMX) |
| 4:15 pm | 1.00 | 2 WSW Johnston | Polk | Trained spotter sent a picture of a hail stone 1 inch in diameter. (DMX) |
| 4:35 pm | 1.00 | Winterset | Madison | (DMX) |
| 4:35 pm | 1.25 | Winterset | Madison | Picture on social media of a measured half dollar size hail stone. (DMX) |
| 4:39 pm | 1.00 | 4 N Winterset | Madison | Reported by Trained Spotter. (DMX) |
| 8:21 pm | 1.25 | 3 N Ames | Story | Nickel to half dollar size. (DMX) |
| 8:23 pm | 1.50 | 2 SE Gilbert | Story | Reported by General Public. (DMX) |
| 8:24 pm | 1.00 | 1 S Gilbert | Story | Relayed by EM. (DMX) |
| 8:35 pm | 1.00 | Earlham | Madison | (DMX) |
| 8:36 pm | 1.00 | 6 NE Ames | Story | Relayed from Spotter Network. (DMX) |
| 8:46 pm | 2.00 | 1 SW Mccallsburg | Story | A few 2 inch... mostly 1.75 and smaller. (DMX) |
| 8:47 pm | 1.00 | 1 S Mccallsburg | Story | Relayed by EM. (DMX) |
| 9:00 pm | 1.75 | 3 SSE Nevada | Story | (DMX) |
| 9:08 pm | 1.00 | 2 W Colo | Story | (DMX) |
What NEXRAD radar recorded inside the metro
386 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; 84 were rated 100% and 15 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 | 187 | 30 | 41 | 10 | 2.75 in | 12:00 am | 9:26 pm |
| KOAX | 149 | 48 | 37 | 4 | 3.00 in | 12:04 am | 9:23 pm |
| KDVN | 50 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2.25 in | 12:15 am | 9:26 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 April 15, 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 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.