An mPING-Based Hail Climatology

The Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground (mPING) project solicits observations of hail size and occurrence. A revised climatology of hail is presented based on mPING observations. One aspect of this data base is that the occurrence of small, “sub-severe” hail is now also available. Observations form mPING indicate that small hail is relatively common and severe hail is more common than Storm Data otherwise indicates. For both sub-severe and severe hail, a relative peak of occurrence is late in the day, but the peak is later for severe hail than for sub-severe hail. Spatial distributions differ somewhat form prior studies, but are similar. Further refinements will be presented.