Alaska has recorded 26 hail events from 1955 to 2024, placing the state below the most active hail-belt states (rank #49 of 50). The largest hailstone documented in Alaska measured 1.5 inches — quarter-sized. The state’s heaviest hail activity is concentrated in June (16 events, the busiest hail month on record) and the most active period (events per year) is 2000-09.

The interactive map below plots every recorded Alaska hail report from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center archive. Use the Min Size buttons to focus on damaging hail (1.75″ golf-ball and larger), or filter by Era to see how activity has shifted over the decades.

Interactive Alaska Hail Storm Map

Alaska hail by the numbers

10 largest hailstones ever recorded in Alaska

These are the top ten hail reports in Alaska ranked by hailstone diameter. Sizes are NOAA’s measured-or-estimated diameter at time of report.

Hail size distribution in Alaska

How Alaska’s 26 hail events break down by hailstone size. Hail under 1″ is treated as marginally severe; the National Weather Service issues severe-thunderstorm warnings starting at 1″ (quarter size).

Activity by decade

Recorded hail events have risen across most US states over the decades — partly because of more severe weather, but largely because of vastly improved spotter networks, mobile reporting, and dual-polarisation radar coverage that came online widely after 2010. The events-per-year column normalises the 45-year pre-2000 bucket against the modern 10-year and 5-year periods so the trend is comparable.

When Alaska’s hail season peaks

Alaska’s hail activity by calendar month, summed across all years from 1955 to 2024.

Where Alaska fits in the US hail picture

Alaska lies well outside the high-frequency US Hail Alley. The state’s hail activity is comparatively rare and tends to be driven by isolated thunderstorms, frontal passages, or, in a few western states, by orographic lift over the mountains. When Alaska does see severe hail, it’s often a single high-impact event rather than a season-long pattern of weekly storms.

Frequently asked questions about Alaska hailstorms

What is the largest hailstone ever recorded in Alaska?

According to NOAA Storm Prediction Center data, the largest measured hailstone in Alaska was 1.5 inches in diameter — quarter-sized. The map above plots that event along with every other hail report on file for the state.

When does Alaska get the most hail?

June is Alaska’s busiest hail month, with 16 recorded events — the highest single-month total in the state’s NOAA record. Most Alaska hail falls in the spring and early-summer convective season; you can see the full month-by-month breakdown in the seasonality table above.

Where in Alaska does hail occur most often?

Use the interactive map above to identify the highest-density hail corridors. Pan, zoom and click any point to see the date, size and reported damage for that event. Patterns vary across Alaska — in many states the heaviest activity clusters along specific corridors driven by local terrain, lake effects, or jet-stream positioning.

Is Alaska’s hail activity getting worse?

Roughly steady or modestly declining in the recent record — but interpret the trend with care. The recorded count has risen across nearly every state because spotter networks, mobile reporting apps, and dual-polarisation radar all expanded dramatically after about 2010. So a rising count partly reflects better detection rather than purely worse weather. The size-distribution and damage tables above are slightly less affected by this reporting bias.

How is hail size measured?

Reports use estimated maximum hailstone diameter in inches, usually compared to common objects: 0.75″ (penny), 1″ (quarter, the severe threshold), 1.75″ (golf ball), 2″ (egg), 2.75″ (baseball), 4″ (softball). The largest verified US hailstone, recorded in Vivian, South Dakota in 2010, measured 8 inches across.

Data sources and limitations

All hail event data on this page comes from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center SVRGIS dataset, accessed via an Esri feature service. The dataset contains over 400,000 individual US hail reports from 1955 to 2024. Property and crop loss values are recorded in actual dollar amounts from 1996 onward (categorical codes were used pre-1996, so loss totals on this page exclude those earlier years). Hailstone sizes are reported as measured-or-estimated maximum diameters; report density is influenced by population, road networks, and the modernisation of spotter networks over time.

Related Mapscaping resources: US Hailstorms map (national hub) · NOAA Storm Reports map (tornadoes, hail and wind)