Comparing Environmental Conditions of Convective Storms Producing Damaging Winds and Hail

Damaging winds spawning from severe thunderstorms account for over half of all damage reports in the United States and can produce more damage than tornadoes. Hail is also a significant factor to consider in the damage potential of these storms. However, it is not well understood why some storms that produce damaging winds also produce large amounts of hail while others do not. Therefore, this study examines the environmental conditions of convective storms to determine why only some storms produce damaging wind and hail while others may only produce damage wind. To isolate the primarily damaging wind environment from tornadic environment, storm reports from 2000-2015 were filtered on days where damaging wind was the majority of reports. Days where hail reports were ≤ 10% of total reports were separated from cases where hail accounted for > 10% of reports. Environmental parameters examined include instability, mid-level moisture, bulk and low-level wind shear, and rotating updraft potential (helicity). Statistics and correlations between these variables for hail-and non-hail producing wind storms will be presented.