The most recent reported hail day was 2026-04-13, 109 days ago. Palo Alto County has recorded hail in nearly every year on the archive. 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 2023-06-24 near Cylinder.
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 2026-04-13, around Graettinger. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Palo Alto 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 25 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.5 a year over 17 years of record. They carry 35 reports in total: most hail days here are logged from a single spot. Exactly one year since 2010 passed with no reported hail day at all. The busiest single year was 2013, with 4 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 7 days since 2022.
4 of the 25 days reached 2 inches or more -- 16%, or about one hail day in 6, the last on 2024-05-20. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in August, not April. 9 of the 25 days reached golf-ball size, 1.75 inches or bigger.
Across the whole of Iowa, see the Iowa hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Ruthven -- 7 of the county's 25 hail days -- then Mallard (4), Graettinger (4), West Bend (3) and Emmetsburg (3). Beyond those, NOAA names Cylinder, S Emmetsburg and Fenton on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| West Bend | 3 | 2.75″ |
| Emmetsburg | 2 | 2.50″ |
| Mallard | 2 | 2.00″ |
| 2 Sse Mallard | 2 | 1.75″ |
| 3 N Ruthven | 2 | 1.75″ |
The season runs April through August: 23 of the 25 hail days on record fall in those 5 months (92%). April is the single busiest month, with 6 of them (24%). That peak opens the window: the season starts at its worst and eases off from there. Hail has also been reported in September and October, outside that window. Reports span 7 of the 12 calendar months; the other 5 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| April | 6 |
| May | 5 |
| June | 4 |
| July | 3 |
| August | 5 |
| September | 1 |
| October | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Graettinger. 1 hail day has already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-13 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-04-28 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2024-05-20 | 2.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-08-11 | 1.25″ | 1 |
| 2023-06-24 | 3.00″ | 6 |
| 2023-05-08 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-04-12 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2020-07-11 | 1.75″ | 3 |
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: Emmet County (16 hail days), Clay County (30) and Pocahontas County (22). Palo Alto County sits in between.
Emmet County · Clay County · Pocahontas 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, Palo Alto County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.