Pirate's Cove

We can stop this if only you would buy an EV for your trips to go get a soy burger

Hailstorms and climate change: What to expect

When people think of the most dangerous threats spawned by thunderstorms, tornadoes typically come to mind. Yet in terms of total damage, hail really ought to be front and center. U.S. hailstorms cause far more property damage than tornadoes, and their toll is rising fast. Climate change may only accentuate the trend.

Insured U.S. hail losses now average from $8 billion to $14 billion per year, or $80-140 billion per decade, as noted by the Insurance Information Institute. This hefty bill far outpaces the total of around $14.1 billion in insured U.S. property loss from tornadoes over the decade from 2010 to 2020.

Each year since 2008 has produced at least $10 billion (USD 2021) in U.S. insured damage from severe weather, according to the reinsurance firm Aon. That’s more than four times the inflation-adjusted damage rate of the 1980s. Hail is typically the largest single culprit in such losses, according to Aon’s Steve Bowen, who called the trend toward more costly severe weather “definitely a new normal.”

One reason the financial impact of hail is getting worse: there are increasingly more things to damage in hail country.

Well, yeah. More houses, buildings, vehicles

Trends in hail-producing storms themselves are also part of the picture. Hail-producing thunderstorms are localized by nature, and databases of hail reports are imperfect. Still, there’s at least some evidence that the largest, most destructive hailstones could become more common in hail country. Climate-model projections indicate this apparent enlargement trend may continue in at least some hail-prone areas as the century unfolds.

That’s right, computer models as stand ins for crystal balls.

In contrast to some other widely documented trends in line with a warming climate – e.g., the intensification of extreme rainfall, or the increase in record-high versus record-low temperatures – researchers haven’t found a consistent trend in hail evolution around the world. Any such trends would be difficult to ferret out because of hail’s overall rarity and because of regional and temporal variations in how hail is measured.

So, they’re purely guessing

Though there’s no sign of a broad global shift toward more hail, there are hints that hail is becoming more severe in at least some areas. A 45-year analysis in northeast Italy found a 2% rise per year in the kinetic energy (a proxy for destructive power) delivered by 90^th-percentile hailstorms, or the most intense 10% of all hailstorms, even though the total number of hailstorms did not change dramatically.

Hints are not scientifically gathered data to show a trend.

Hail may become less frequent, but trending larger when it does happen

Oh, good grief. Same garbage prognostication as with hurricanes. It’s a cult.