4. Forecast Applications

Convection » Hail Summary

We used a hypothetical Midwest U.S. morning sounding to assess the potential for hail in thunderstorms later in the day. Our initial analysis revealed that hail was a good possibility and this was confirmed by an empirically-derived forecast diagram. We also used the Fawbush-Miller method to forecast maximum hail size of about 1 inch (2.5 cm). Since this is equal to the threshold hail diameter (1 inch, 2.5 cm) for severe thunderstorms in the U.S., we would want to alert our aircraft operations of the potential for severe thunderstorms and damaging hail this afternoon.