Severe hail climatology of Turkey

Abstract

A climatology of severe hail (diameter equal to or exceeding approximately 1.5 cm) for Turkey is constructed from official severe weather reports from meteorological stations, newspaper archives, and Internet sources. The dataset consists of 1489 severe hail cases on 1107 severe hail days (days with at least one severe hail case) during 1925-2014. Severe hail was reported most often in the 1960s, followed by a decrease until the 2000s, and an ensuing increase in the past decade. Severe hail is most likely to occur in the afternoon and evening, and in spring and summer, particularly May and June. The geographical distribution implies that almost all of Turkey is prone to severe hailstorms. In 8.3% of the severe hail cases, very large hailstones (diameter equal to or exceeding approximately 4.5 cm) were observed.