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The public record 1996 to today

California hail history

The public federal storm record holds 969 days with hail somewhere in California since 1996, 225 of them at 1.00″ or more, across 4,549 reports. The largest on record is 3.00″ on 23 January 2016 in TEHAMA County. 412 cities have hail on record within 10 miles of their centre, and each has a page that says what was searched and which storm days more than one source carried. The wind family has its own index: California wind history.

969

Days with hail on record, statewide

225

Days at 1.00″ or more

3.00in

Largest on record, Jan 2016

412

Cities with hail on record nearby

Hail by city in California

Ranked by days with hail on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.

  1. 01 Arcata 112 days
  2. 02 Eureka 96 days
  3. 03 Fresno 55 days
  4. 04 Clovis 52 days
  5. 05 Crescent City 49 days
  6. 06 Fortuna 39 days
  7. 07 Visalia 37 days
  8. 08 Lemoore 35 days
  9. 09 South Lake Tahoe 33 days
  10. 10 Farmersville 33 days
  11. 11 Sanger 31 days
  12. 12 Truckee 31 days
  13. 13 Hanford 29 days
  14. 14 Santee 29 days
  15. 15 Sausalito 29 days
  16. 16 Citrus Heights 28 days
  17. 17 Moraga 28 days
  18. 18 Tiburon 28 days
  19. 19 San Diego 27 days
  20. 20 Tulare 27 days
  21. 21 Campbell 27 days
  22. 22 Lafayette 27 days
  23. 23 Orinda 26 days
  24. 24 Parlier 26 days
  25. 25 Loomis 26 days
  26. 26 Berkeley 25 days
  27. 27 Rocklin 25 days
  28. 28 Los Gatos 25 days
  29. 29 Saratoga 25 days
  30. 30 Emeryville 25 days
Every place in California (428)

Hail days by year in California

Days with hail At 1.00″ or more

The busiest year on record is 2015, with 59 days of hail, 15 of them at 1.00″ or more.

Largest hail recorded in California

Measured Detected, not measured

Largest hail recorded in California: date, hail size, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Size Evidence County
23 Jan 2016 3.00″ Ground observation TEHAMA, CA
23 Jan 2016 3.00″ Ground observation TEHAMA, CA
23 Jan 2016 3.00″ Ground observation Not stated
24 May 2019 3.00″ Ground observation SHASTA, CA
22 Nov 1996 2.50″ Ground observation KINGS, CA
24 May 2019 2.50″ Ground observation SHASTA, CA
24 May 2019 2.50″ Ground observation SHASTA, CA
24 May 2019 2.50″ Ground observation Not stated

Hail days by month in California

Hail here is a March matter: 142 of the days on record fall in that month, all years together.

The next step

Get the hail report for an address in California

The figures on this page are the record across California: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: the storm, the date, the measured size, the distance and bearing from the roof, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

What counted
Every hail report in the archive filed under California by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A hail day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of hail, not four.
Measured and detected
A report from a person or an instrument is measured. A radar-derived size is a detection and is marked as one, here and in every document we issue. The two are never added together.
Severe
A day counts as severe when its largest report reached 1.00″, the National Weather Service criterion. Smaller hail is still on the record, and still on this page.
What this is not
Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about one.
Terms used on this page
Storm day, independent source, measured and detected: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
The record
Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 27 August 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.