Seasonality of hail outbreaks in the United States and its link to weather regimes

Abstract

Hailstorms in the United States produce immense economic losses and have an occurrence frequency that appears to have a long-term positive trend. Here we contribute an updated examination of such hail activity and the relevant environmental parameters over the period 1990--2024. We define a hail outbreak as any day with $>6$ significant hail reports ($hail\ge 2$'' diameter) and find a positive trend in hail outbreaks since 1990 ($slope=0.8$ days $y{r}^{-1}$) with the largest increases occurring in May and June and in the Southern Great Plains. Analysis of environmental parameters shows that the long-term increase in hail outbreaks correlates with a long-term increase in the significant hail parameter (SHIP, $cc=0.67$, $p<0.01$). The interannual variability and long-term trend of SHIP are driven both by thermodynamic and kinematic processes, though kinematic processes play a more important role than thermodynamic processes in the interannual variability of hail outbreaks. Using warm-season (April--July) weather regimes (WRs), we find that large-scale circulation modulates the interannual variability of hail outbreak frequency. An empirical model using WR frequency captures the interannual variability in warm-season hail outbreaks reasonably well ($cc=0.38$, $p=0.03$). Our study is the first to relate hail activity to WRs and presents a better understanding of the trend and year-to-year variability of hail outbreaks.

30 pages including title page and supplementary figures, 6 manuscript figures, 9 supplemental figures, submitted to AMS Journal of Climate and has not yet been peer-reviewed