Insane video of hail storm in Oklahoma City May 16

I absolutely LOVE extreme weather. For some reason I am craving to storm chase. Move around Tornado Alley... just experiencing the raw powers of our planet. As destructive and powerful as the potential it holds, it also shows magnetic beauty that just surges in such powerful storm cells.
This video is crazy though. I'm glad you guys had sufficient cover. Hopefully nothing got too damaged. I imagine the insurance companies getting flooded with claims the coming week.

Far freaking out. I love it when mother nature shows off.

And yes tornado ally has weather has this happen every spring. But that was probably the most intense hail storm I've ever seen.

Thanks for the find.

We had that here in North Georgia last fall. I scored a new roof from it. The stuff was HUGE, tennis and baseball sized. It was loud too, and the ground was white like it had snowed when it was all done.

No, I wouldn't want to be out in that either.

Looks like a typical storm in Tornado Ally to me. Having lived in that area for several years I have seen it before and I agree with an earlier poster, the size can get bigger. I once was in a storm that was dumping softball sized hail. Seeing hail dents on a car in the midwest is pretty common as well. It can also make for some great deals at the local car dealerships after such a storm lol.

I'm more shocked that the people in the video seemed like they were standing outside under a roof. If it was me, I'd been inside and watching through the window from a fair distance lol. No doubt about it to anyone who lives in Tornado Ally, hail can injure and kill.

I will say the duration seemed pretty long. Could this just be more evidence that weather patterns are continuing to get more severe over time?

It's odd some of you are saying this is normal when clearly in the video the people - or more specifically the one guy in particular - is repeatedly saying "I've never seen anything like this before!"

And I can agree, me neither. I've seen and been in bad hail before, and been hit by it physically and yes it does hurt, feels somewhat like a paintball hitting you except imagine it raining down on your head/shoulders.

That video was amazing though, great footage, thanks for sharing OP S&F.

-edit to add: And yes this is definitely mother nature at it's best. You can run but you can't hide

I do feel bad for those caught out in the storm though as well. Like I said I've been hit with hail before, but never this size. I would say you would easily be knocked unconscious and then pelted repeatedly with more hail which could easily damage the body and possibly kill you. I'd say you have a bad chance of dying as well if you're driving... I've been on the highway before when it started raining so badly that I could not see what so ever, and yet people still drive fast as to follow the person in front of them (and this continues down the line so everyone knows where they're going) - thing is, one person screws up then everyone is in for a [bad] surprise. I can't imagine that kind of rain + that size hail coming down on my car while driving, especially at excessive speeds.

Oh thought I'd add this video - same storm (pretty good footage as well, you see how rapidly the storm changes):


[edit on 18/5/2010 by highlyoriginal]

wow that is insanely crazy, im sure there is some death toll there!

Thats pretty damn crazy OP.

Luckily ive never been in a hail storm that bad......yet

reply to post by Vitchilo




We in Australia get hail storms like that maybe 2 - 3 times a year.

It's crazy when it happens and can definitely do some damage.

I was watching the vid, and thought, "how could if possibly get any worse??" and then it freaking did really hope no one was out in that and got hurt

Ive been thru plenty of hail storms in my life, but that was pretty intesnse!!!! Ha, I love extreme weather. Once I hear hail outside my window, I pull up a chair and just watch.

My friend was caught in that storm, and after it was all over, every single window in her car was completley smashed out, i mean shattered! not just a smashed window thats still on the car, I mean completely gone, some pieces like 15 feet away!

When I was a kid (about 9-10) we had a hail storm with tennis ball sized hail, but it only lasted a few seconds and was nowhere near the sheer scale and awesomeness of this one.

Nice find!

I can just imagine now the storm of phone calls that are being fielded by various insurance companies this this week. They'd better not be the next ones showing up in D.C. with their hats in their hands, expecting a bailout. By the way, NOBODY experiences a hailstorm this bad 2-3 times a year... They'd have no house left.

Originally posted by highlyoriginal
It's odd some of you are saying this is normal when clearly in the video the people - or more specifically the one guy in particular - is repeatedly saying "I've never seen anything like this before!"

And I can agree, me neither. [edit on 18/5/2010 by highlyoriginal]

Well this one comes out of Atlanta on March of 2008



This video comes out of Minnesota in 2006, this has some golf ball sized hail, watch it all the way through. It has no dramatic footage of the hail hitting a swimming pool and splashing, but it is still a sight to see when you get to the footage near the end of the report.

Google Video Link

And yet some more in Kansas



So as you can see, especially in Tornado Ally hail is very common and right now, if memory serves me correctly we are in the Tornado Season.

Originally posted by Maybe...maybe not
Here’s another interesting hail storm event.....

In 1999, Sydney experienced a supercell that tracked up the coast & then caused more than $1 BILLION damage in a very short time.


G' day All,

Yes I was there, I was living in Sydney at a place called Kensington that got the worst of it.

We had friends over and I was in the kitchen, I heard what I thought was a freight train comeing louder and louder but we didnt have trains that come that close. We all went out side to see and thats when we knew that it was hail smashing on all the tin roofs coming towards us.

When it hit, it hit like something from a war movie, the sound was deafening, I have never heard anything like it since. It started down with golf ball size, cricket ball size, and then the grapefruit size came down, that's like larger than a soft ball for you living in the US.

It was devestating, all the car's in the street were pummelled to wrecks and all the house's with ceramic tiles were smashed and water damaged.
There was also a report of a fire truck getting a football size piece of ice through the windscreen while going to a rescue, so there you go, that little hail storm in the vid was a normal hail storm we get down here in Australia.

BlessedBe: Kernoonos....

Oh man, we almost went there last weekend! That could be lethal. Some high winds and humidity lately too. Could be an interesting summer.

Really awesome video hehe!

thats not bad reminds me of the hail storm we had here in Melbourne in march. what these guys should have been doing instead of filming is run around the house checking for leaking roofs. because i can tell from first hand experience hail that size coming down that fast would have shredded those roof tiles unless they were made from titanium. there was over a billion dollars worth of damage done in less than 20 mins. my car got smashed and i lost the rear windscreen. thousands of houses were damaged and countless cars written off. it was the worst hail storm to hit melbourne for year if not the worst on record. i know sydney had a bad one in 99.

i dont care what anybody says the weather is up the #. its very erratic even for melbourne.

Originally posted by soontide
As a resident of Oklahoma I can tell you that, though extreme in the duration, hailstones that size aren't all that uncommon around here. The official measurements from that day were an average of 4 inch hail. About the size of a grape fruit. The really bad thing about this storm was that it hit OKC right around rush hour. Numerous people were injured in accidents caused by this storm. Of course, there was the obligatory tornado with this storm as well. I believe it was something like 24 touchdowns in the state that day.

So, don't get alarmed. This weather is fairly normal for the region.

are they really that common? because the people in this video of also residents of oklahoma and they seem pretty shocked...infact he sayd "ive never seen anything like it"

doesnt look like a regular occurance to me.

reply to post by TiM3LoRd


TiM3LoRd.....

I was watching that on radar from Sydney & speaking to a friend who was playing in a golf tournament down there.

It was an incredible storm!

Did you see that video of the torrent that was running right through the Melbourne CBD?

Unbelievable.....

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

Another video of the same storm.. Wow!