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The public record 1996 to today

Virginia hail history

The public federal storm record holds 1,126 days with hail somewhere in Virginia since 1996, 735 of them at 1.00″ or more, across 16,047 reports. The largest on record is 4.75″ on 7 August 2023. 63 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: Virginia wind history.

1,126

Days with hail on record, statewide

735

Days at 1.00″ or more

4.75in

Largest on record, Aug 2023

63

Cities with hail on record nearby

Hail by city in Virginia

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 Vinton 135 days
  2. 02 Roanoke 127 days
  3. 03 Christiansburg 118 days
  4. 04 Salem 108 days
  5. 05 Blacksburg 103 days
  6. 06 Radford 102 days
  7. 07 Vienna 95 days
  8. 08 Falls Church 93 days
  9. 09 Martinsville 88 days
  10. 10 Fairfax 84 days
  11. 11 Herndon 80 days
  12. 12 Galax 79 days
  13. 13 Portsmouth 74 days
  14. 14 Lynchburg 73 days
  15. 15 Norfolk 72 days
  16. 16 Alexandria 72 days
  17. 17 Richmond 66 days
  18. 18 Colonial Heights 62 days
  19. 19 Manassas Park 61 days
  20. 20 Chesapeake 56 days
  21. 21 Leesburg 56 days
  22. 22 Manassas 56 days
  23. 23 Hopewell 56 days
  24. 24 Danville 55 days
  25. 25 Winchester 55 days
  26. 26 Pulaski 55 days
  27. 27 Petersburg 50 days
  28. 28 Virginia Beach 49 days
  29. 29 Fredericksburg 49 days
  30. 30 Purcellville 48 days
Every place in Virginia (63)

Hail days by year in Virginia

Days with hail At 1.00″ or more

The busiest year on record is 2011, with 64 days of hail, 57 of them at 1.00″ or more.

Largest hail recorded in Virginia

Measured Detected, not measured

Largest hail recorded in Virginia: date, hail size, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Size Evidence County
07 Aug 2023 4.75″ Ground observation Not stated
07 Aug 2023 4.75″ Ground observation Caroline, VA
14 Aug 2021 4.60″ Ground observation FAIRFAX, VA
04 May 1996 4.50″ Ground observation CULPEPER, VA
04 Jun 2002 4.50″ Ground observation Not stated
04 Jun 2002 4.50″ Ground observation ALBEMARLE, VA
27 Apr 2011 4.50″ Ground observation SMYTH, VA
09 May 2003 4.25″ Ground observation Not stated

Hail days by month in Virginia

Hail here is a May matter: 245 of the days on record fall in that month, all years together.

The next step

Get the hail report for an address in Virginia

The figures on this page are the record across Virginia: 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 Virginia 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 26 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.