Large hail, some softball sized, pummeled Kansas City. Here’s the hardest hit areas
The Kansas City area took a beating overnight Wednesday into early Thursday as rounds of strong to severe storms swept through the metro, pummeling the metro with huge hail, according to local storm reports submitted to the National Weather Service.
While law enforcement reported softball-sized hail — 4 inches in diameter — near Alma, Kansas, the KC metro area saw slightly smaller hailstones, but not by much.
A hailstone measuring 3.5 inches was reported near 55th Street and McCormick Drive in Shawnee. Using the weather service’s hail size description would put it on the scale of a large apple.
Much of the metro area saw hail ranging from a quarter (about 1 inch in diameter) to a golf ball (about 1 3/4 inches). A few people reported hail the size of limes or medium-sized hen eggs (2 inches) and baseballs (2 3/4 inches).
In an interview with The Star, Cathy Rocco of Shawnee said she saw a massive hailstone fall in her yard. Nearby residents told her that the large hail damaged vehicles and broke windows on homes.
“I watched this one bounce in my backyard and had to run out and get it,” she said on Facebook.
In the Kansas City area, Johnson and Wyandotte counties appear to have seen the largest hail stones.
In Johnson County, the size of the hail reported to the weather service ranged from just under an inch near Kansas 7 highway and Shawnee Mission Parkway in Shawnee to 3.5 inches reported in at 55th and McCormick in Shawnee. There were multiple reports of hail over the size of two inches in diameter.
Meanwhile in Wyandotte County, hail sizes varied from one inch, reported at near North 99th Street and Leavenworth Road in Kansas City, Kansas, to 2.5 inches in Edwardsville.
One person posted to Reddit that the hail was the biggest they had ever seen, saying they had plastic lawn chairs that got “Swiss-cheesed.”
In Clay County, quarter-sized hail was reported near Worlds of Fun, which is near Interstate 435 and Northeast 48th Street in Kansas City’s Northland. Golf ball-sized hail was reported near Missouri 291 highway and South Withers Road in Liberty.
In Jackson and Platte counties, hail about one inch in diameter was mostly reported.
One Reddit user even posted a unique use for the hail — having hailstones serve as ice for an Old Fashioned cocktail.
The Star’s Kendrick Calfee provided some information for this story.
This story was originally published March 14, 2024 at 8:54 AM.
