Hailstorms

Abstract

The purposes in this chapter are to provide a critical summary of current thinking about the distinction between hailstorms and other severe storms, and to discuss the outstanding problems of hailstorms and approaches toward their solution. The last reviews of this subject were by Browning (1977), Macklin (1977), and other authors in the AMS monograph Hail: A Review of Hail Science and Hail Suppression (Foote and Knight 1977), and articles by List (1985), Morgan and Summers (1985), and Foote (1985). Some repetition here of material in these references is unavoidable. They provide discussions that are still current in most ways, and are useful entries into the literature prior to their publication dates. The review by Browning (1977) in particular is more complete in discussing some aspects of hailstorms than is the present chapter. We have purposely taken an organizational approach that is different from his, because the setting of this article is a volume on severe storms instead of one on hail, and because our viewpoint is somewhat different.