A hurricane is a powerful tropical cyclone characterized by a low-pressure center, strong spiraling winds, and heavy rain. These storms draw energy from warm ocean waters, creating vast, towering thunderstorm complexes. Given their size and intensity, it is natural to wonder if they produce hail, the solid form of precipitation typically associated with severe thunderstorms. The answer is yes, but it is extremely rare for it to reach the ground due to unique atmospheric conditions.
What It Takes for Hail to Form
The formation of noticeable hailstones depends on two requirements: powerful, sustained updrafts and a low freezing level. Updrafts are currents of warm air that rush upward into a thunderstorm, lifting water droplets and small ice particles high above the freezing level. These currents, often found in intense storms like supercells, can exceed 100 miles per hour.
Once lifted above the freezing level, the ice particle—called a hail embryo—grows by colliding with supercooled liquid water droplets that instantly freeze onto its surface. This process, called accretion, requires significant vertical distance above the freezing line for the hailstone to grow large enough to survive the fall. The hailstone cycles through the storm cloud until it becomes too heavy for the updraft to support, and gravity pulls it down.
Why Hurricane Structure Prevents Hail
Hurricanes rarely produce surface hail because of their unique thermal structure, which differs fundamentally from mid-latitude thunderstorms. Hurricanes have a “warm core,” a region of warmer air aloft near the center caused by the release of latent heat as water vapor condenses. This warm core dramatically elevates the freezing level, often pushing it to altitudes of 18,000 to 20,000 feet, much higher than in typical severe storms.
This high freezing level shortens the growth region for hailstones and increases the distance the ice must fall through warm air. Hailstones that form in the eyewall clouds quickly melt as they descend through the deep layer of warm, moist air below the freezing line. While hurricane updrafts are strong, their energy is distributed over a broader area, making them less focused and intense than the narrow updrafts required for large hail in supercells. Strong horizontal winds near the surface also blow falling ice sideways, increasing its time in the warm layer and ensuring it melts before impact.
Hail on the Periphery: When and Where It Happens
While hail is suppressed near the hurricane center, small hail can form and reach the surface in the outer edges of the storm. This most often occurs within the outer spiral rainbands, which contain discrete, intense thunderstorm cells. These outer bands sometimes feature isolated convection that is more intense and focused than the general circulation closer to the eye.
In these peripheral areas, the storm’s environment is less purely tropical, allowing for greater wind shear and colder air intrusion aloft. This favors the development of more intense, localized updrafts. Small hailstones or ice pellets may briefly survive the fall in these isolated cells, but they are typically much smaller than the damaging hail found in the Great Plains. Hail is also more likely when a hurricane begins its extratropical transition, moving over colder water or land, which weakens the warm core and lowers the freezing level.