Hail up to the size of hen eggs fell from the sky Saturday afternoon and evening across parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas. Take a look at some of the pictures coming in so far.
The first picture is courtesy Rachel Fight via Facebook and second picture courtesy Sunby3 via Twitter.
HOW BIG ARE WE TALKING? Hail big enough to cause damage Saturday evening across parts of Arkansas & Oklahoma. Check out some of the stones compared to everyday objects…the threat continues into early Sunday #arwx #okwx #hail pic.twitter.com/YPI5WU6ecf
— Meredith Garofalo (@GarofaloWX) March 11, 2018
Hail reached up to the size of two inches thick near Charleston, Arkansas and just shy of two inches in Muldrow, Oklahoma.
Most of these big hail reports came from a handful of storms that continued to produce the stones throughout their path.
This afternoon's storms in western Arkansas are leaving a hail swath on radar imagery. @GarofaloWX explains what has fallen so far #ARwx pic.twitter.com/cJVDljcwFv
— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) March 11, 2018
What caused the big hail? Robust updrafts. There was strong vertical motion within Saturday’s storms, meaning the air was rising really fast upwards into the sky. This can happen from warm, moist air near the ground rising quickly through cooler/drier air above it. Or it can also happen via a triggering mechanism such as a cold front or warm front. As this air rose quickly, small ice chunks began to form. When the ice chunks became too heavy for the wind to keep pushing it up, it fell from the sky and resulted in the images above.
The potential for more severe weather continues through Saturday night and into Sunday morning. In fact, the rest of Sunday and Monday could feature additional severe weather. We have written more extensively about that topic here, just click/tap to here to read more.
For WeatherNation, Meteorologist Steve Glazier