If you’ve ever been in the path of a severe thunderstorm, you’ve probably experienced hail.
Often arriving in a ruinous barrage of ice, severe hailstorms inflict billions of dollars in damage annually on crops, aircraft, homes and vehicles. Their extreme unpredictability and localized footprints make them challenging to intercept. Large hailstones carry massive kinetic energy that easily shatters most ground-based sensors, and poses deadly risks to observers.
To help NOAA scientists decipher real-world hailstorm dynamics, NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the environmental data and weather intelligence startup Hailios, Inc. The partnership will let researchers integrate two one-of-a-kind instruments to safely capture a groundbreaking range of data about hail storms.
“By learning more about how hail falls and how its impacts vary, we can improve our ability to predict and issue warnings for damaging events,” says Dr. Sean Waugh, a research meteorologist with NSSL. “We can also apply this information to design hail-resistant materials.” and structures, working towards a more resilient infrastructure that reduces cost and losses.”
NSSL will deploy its HailCam, a custom-designed instrument that captures high-resolution observations about the size, shape, and speed of striking hailstones. The array of high-speed cameras and specialized lights is encased in bullet-resistant polycarbonate, wrapped in a metal cage, and mounted to the back of a diesel pickup truck.
Hailios brings their industry-proven “impact disdrometer,” a highly specialized, wireless, solar-powered hail detection and analysis platform specifically engineered to measure and record the severe kinetic impacts of hailstones.
The disdrometer, about the size of a pizza box, will be mounted directly on the HailCam vehicle in view of the cameras, so that researchers can tie direct physical observations from the HailCam system to individual kinetic detections recorded by Hailios’ disdrometer.
“The combined optical and kinetic energy measurements will give us the first direct observations of the size, fall behavior, impact angle, and impact energy imparted by individual hailstones under natural storm conditions,” Waugh said.
NSSL, located in Norman, Oklahoma, is the world’s preeminent laboratory for observing, understanding, and modeling severe thunderstorms. At NSSL, scientists’ research focuses on understanding weather processes, developing weather observation technology, and improving forecast tools in order to save lives and reduce property damage.
Hailios, Inc., based in Sarasota, Florida, is a hardware and software technology company that provides real-time and historical hail data to its insurance partners, agents, and utility-scale solar operators. Their compact disdrometers can be placed on individual structures, properties or assets. They measure the impact energy of each hailstone that hits as well as recording the time and duration of any storm.
“Partnering with NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory represents a significant leap forward in our mission to protect communities from severe weather,” says Lucas Schiff, co-founder and CEO of Hailios, Inc. “The unprecedented ability to assimilate real-world storm conditions—the shape and velocity of hailstones, and their impact energy—will provide critical insights necessary to fine-tune our understanding of severe thunderstorms, and build a more resilient future.”
A better understanding of hail storm dynamics will in turn help NOAA improve severe weather warning accuracy, provide more effective impact-based decision support, and protect public safety, Waugh said.
NOAA regularly partners with private sector companies through CRADAs to conduct research and development work that is mutually beneficial and helps to accomplish NOAA’s mission. NOAA CRADAs are coordinated through NOAA’s Technology Partnerships Office.