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The public record 1996 to today

Iowa hail history

The public federal storm record holds 1,548 days with hail somewhere in Iowa since 1996, 1,084 of them at 1.00″ or more, across 37,809 reports. The largest on record is 5.50″ on 22 May 2004. 86 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: Iowa wind history.

1,548

Days with hail on record, statewide

1,084

Days at 1.00″ or more

5.50in

Largest on record, May 2004

86

Cities with hail on record nearby

Hail by city in Iowa

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 Bettendorf 178 days
  2. 02 Cedar Rapids 175 days
  3. 03 Davenport 171 days
  4. 04 Hiawatha 168 days
  5. 05 Council Bluffs 163 days
  6. 06 Windsor Heights 161 days
  7. 07 Marion 157 days
  8. 08 Clive 152 days
  9. 09 Des Moines 150 days
  10. 10 West Des Moines 150 days
  11. 11 Eldridge 148 days
  12. 12 Urbandale 145 days
  13. 13 Johnston 143 days
  14. 14 Ankeny 128 days
  15. 15 Grimes 128 days
  16. 16 Norwalk 125 days
  17. 17 Waukee 123 days
  18. 18 Pleasant Hill 116 days
  19. 19 Altoona 110 days
  20. 20 North Liberty 109 days
  21. 21 Polk City 107 days
  22. 22 Glenwood 100 days
  23. 23 Coralville 96 days
  24. 24 Iowa City 95 days
  25. 25 Sergeant Bluff 93 days
  26. 26 Tiffin 92 days
  27. 27 Adel 91 days
  28. 28 Sioux City 89 days
  29. 29 Burlington 89 days
  30. 30 Dubuque 86 days
Every place in Iowa (86)

Hail days by year in Iowa

Days with hail At 1.00″ or more

The busiest year on record is 2006, with 71 days of hail, 40 of them at 1.00″ or more.

Largest hail recorded in Iowa

Measured Detected, not measured

Largest hail recorded in Iowa: date, hail size, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Size Evidence County
22 May 2004 5.50″ Ground observation Not stated
22 May 2004 5.50″ Ground observation STORY, IA
26 Aug 2004 5.50″ Ground observation Not stated
26 Aug 2004 5.50″ Ground observation HANCOCK, IA
30 May 1998 5.00″ Ground observation STORY, IA
08 May 2003 4.75″ Ground observation MAHASKA, IA
08 May 2003 4.75″ Ground observation Not stated
17 May 1996 4.50″ Ground observation FLOYD, IA

Hail days by month in Iowa

Hail here is a June matter: 328 of the days on record fall in that month, all years together.

The next step

Get the hail report for an address in Iowa

The figures on this page are the record across Iowa: 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 Iowa 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 2 November 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.