NORTHERN MICHIGAN - It has been a record-setting year in the weather department all over the U.S., and the Midwest is no exception. Northern Michigan saw record-breaking hail the size of your average baseball on Sunday, Aug. 2nd, during an extremely windy late weekend storm.
According to an M Live report, the ice stones that fell measured at about 4.25 inches, the largest for that area of the state and in the top five for the state’s overall hail measurements. The last storm in Michigan to see this measurement was in Jackson County, Michigan, on June 9th of last year.
The state is still currently growing blueberries, ranking as one of the leading states for production, but a grower reported that, luckily, little-to-no damage was seen. Because most of the fruit on the bush is green, he reported, the wind wasn’t able to blow much away while the worst of the storm stayed higher north than the crops.
Matt Gillen, a weather service Meteorologist, told M Live that hail stones of this size usually is seen in the Plains States, like Texas and Oklahoma. "We've seen this kind of hail only a handful of times since records began in the mid-1950s," he stated.
Gillen also stated in the report that storms like this can be very dangerous, though it seems that only vehicle and some property damages were reported.
"[The hail would] be falling out of the sky at 100-plus miles-per-hour," Gillen said.
Thankfully, despite the potential danger, no injuries related to the storm were reported.
