Hail in Des Moines on Tuesday, September 8, 2026
The Storm Prediction Center logged 8 hail reports in Des Moines on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, between 5:53 pm and 6:31 pm CDT, in 1 of the metro's 6 counties. The largest was 2.25 inches at Ankeny (Polk County) at 5:53 pm. NOAA radar flagged 239 hail signatures inside the metro that day: 80 rated a 100% chance of hail and 72 with a maximum expected size of 1 inch or more.
Where hail was reported
Reports came from 3 places in Polk County, named as the National Weather Service described them.
- Ankeny 4 reports, up to 2.25 in
- Bondurant 2 reports, up to 1.75 in
- Mitchellville 2 reports, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5:53 pm | 2.25 | Ankeny | Polk | Report of 2.25 inch hail relayed from broadcast media via email. (DMX) |
| 6:08 pm | 1.50 | 2 E Ankeny | Polk | Trained spotter reported largest hail around 1.5 inches and minor siding damage. (DMX) |
| 6:09 pm | 1.25 | 1 NW Bondurant | Polk | Report from mPING: Half Dollar (1.25 in.). (DMX) |
| 6:09 pm | 1.50 | 3 E Ankeny | Polk | Report from mPING: Ping Pong Ball (1.50 in.). (DMX) |
| 6:10 pm | 1.25 | 4 SE Ankeny | Polk | Relayed public photo of a hailstone estimated at half dollar sized. Time and location also estimated. (DMX) |
| 6:17 pm | 1.75 | 1 NW Bondurant | Polk | Report from mPING: Golf Ball (1.75 in.). (DMX) |
| 6:20 pm | 1.75 | Mitchellville | Polk | Picture sent in via social media. (DMX) |
| 6:31 pm | 1.50 | Mitchellville | Polk | Report from mPING: Ping Pong Ball (1.50 in.). (DMX) |
What NEXRAD radar recorded inside the metro
239 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; 80 were rated 100% and 16 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 | 114 | 38 | 38 | 11 | 2.75 in | 5:03 pm | 11:29 pm |
| KOAX | 85 | 16 | 12 | 1 | 2.25 in | 5:13 pm | 11:23 pm |
| KDVN | 40 | 26 | 22 | 4 | 2.75 in | 6:24 pm | 10:35 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 September 8, 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.