The most recent reported hail day was 2026-04-15, 107 days ago. Benton County is hit in most years. The largest stone on record here is 3 inches, a teacup and 3 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2020-07-11 near Norway.
Colored swath = NOAA MRMS radar-estimated hail size; dots = NOAA SPC reports in Iowa. Radar-indicated, not a guarantee of damage.
The last hail here fell on 2026-04-15, around Vinton. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Benton County addresses inside a hail swath above your size threshold into a door-knock list you can export, scoped to your approved markets.
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See call-center options ->NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has logged 32 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.9 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 77 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. 4 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2023, with 6 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 10 days since 2022.
Most hail here stays under 2 inches: only 2 of the 32 days on record passed it, 6%, the last on 2026-04-14. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in April, not June. Golf-ball size is rarer still: 1.75 inches or more on 4 of the 32 days.
Across the whole of Iowa, see the Iowa hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Vinton -- 7 of the county's 32 hail days -- then Van Horne (6), Belle Plaine (6), Urbana (6) and Norway (4). Beyond those, NOAA names Mount Auburn, Shellsburg, Garrison, Atkins, Walford, Newhall and Wsw Urbana on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Urbana | 5 | 1.00″ |
| Van Horne | 3 | 2.00″ |
| Norway | 3 | 1.75″ |
| 1 Ssw Belle Plaine | 3 | 1.25″ |
| Vinton | 3 | 1.00″ |
The season runs March through July: 27 of the 32 hail days on record fall in those 5 months (84%). June is the single busiest month, with 9 of them (28%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in January, August, September and October, outside that window. February, November and December are the only months that have never produced a reported hail day.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| January | 1 |
| March | 2 |
| April | 8 |
| May | 5 |
| June | 9 |
| July | 3 |
| August | 2 |
| September | 1 |
| October | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Vinton. 2 hail days have already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-15 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2026-04-14 | 2.00″ | 8 |
| 2024-07-15 | 1.25″ | 1 |
| 2023-10-11 | 1.50″ | 2 |
| 2023-07-13 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-05-07 | 1.75″ | 5 |
| 2023-04-19 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-04-04 | 1.00″ | 5 |
The colored swath is NOAA's MRMS radar estimate of the largest hail per ~1 km cell; the dots are SPC ground reports. Yellow is about an inch, red 1.5 to 2″, purple 2″ and up (hail size vs roof damage). On this county's worst day the reports reached 3 inches, which is the purple band. Look up a street address with the hail history by address tool.
The nearest counties with a page of their own: Linn County (38 hail days), Iowa County (22) and Tama County (19). Benton County sits in between.
Linn County · Iowa County · Tama County
Back to the Iowa hail map or the U.S. hail map.
Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Benton County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.