Pottawattamie County, Iowa Hail Map & History
The most recent reported hail day was 2026-06-13, 93 days ago. Pottawattamie County is hit in most years, and usually several times over. The largest stone on record here is 4 inches, a grapefruit and 4 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2025-04-17 near Mcclelland.
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 2026-06-13, around Council Bluffs. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Pottawattamie 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 ->How often it hails in Pottawattamie County
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has logged 43 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 2.5 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 98 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. Exactly one year since 2010 passed with no reported hail day at all. The busiest single year was 2024, with 5 hail days. The last five years have run hotter than the long-run rate: 19 days since 2022, against 2.0 a year before that.
9 of the 43 days reached 2 inches or more -- 21%, or about one hail day in 5, the last on 2025-04-17. They land in the same month as everything else, June. 19 of the 43 days reached golf-ball size, 1.75 inches or bigger.
Across the whole of Iowa, see the Iowa hail map and history.
Hardest-hit places in Pottawattamie County
Reports cluster nearest Council Bluffs -- 17 of the county's 43 hail days -- then Underwood (8), Oakland (7), Crescent (6) and Walnut (6). That one town is named on 40% of them. Beyond those, NOAA names Avoca, Mcclelland, Carson, Minden, Hancock, Macedonia, Neola, Carter Lake and Missouri Valley on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Council Bluffs | 5 | 2.75″ |
| Avoca | 4 | 1.75″ |
| Walnut | 4 | 1.75″ |
| Hancock | 3 | 1.75″ |
| Oakland | 3 | 1.75″ |
When it hails in Pottawattamie County
The season runs April through August: 37 of the 43 hail days on record fall in those 5 months (86%). June is the single busiest month, with 12 of them (28%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in March, September and October, outside that window. Reports span 8 of the 12 calendar months; the other 4 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| March | 1 |
| April | 9 |
| May | 4 |
| June | 12 |
| July | 7 |
| August | 5 |
| September | 4 |
| October | 1 |
Recent Pottawattamie County hail days
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Council Bluffs. 2 hail days have already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-13 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2026-04-23 | 1.00″ | 4 |
| 2025-04-24 | 1.75″ | 8 |
| 2025-04-23 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-04-17 | 4.00″ | 9 |
| 2024-07-07 | 1.75″ | 3 |
| 2024-06-25 | 2.50″ | 4 |
| 2024-06-12 | 2.50″ | 1 |
How to read the Pottawattamie County map
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 4 inches, which is the purple band. Look up a street address with the hail history by address tool.
Nearby counties
The nearest counties with a page of their own, over the state line included: Mills County (30 hail days), Harrison County (35), Shelby County (25), Sarpy County, Nebraska (41) and Douglas County, Nebraska (66). Pottawattamie County sits in between.
Mills County · Harrison County · Shelby County · Sarpy County, Nebraska · Douglas County, Nebraska
Back to the Iowa hail map or the U.S. hail map.
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Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Pottawattamie County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.