The most recent reported hail day was 2026-04-23, 99 days ago. Shelby 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 2014-06-30 near Harlan.
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 2026-04-23, around Westphalia. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Shelby 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 42 reports in total: most hail days here are logged from a single spot. 6 of those 17 years produced none at all. One year dominates the record: 2014 alone produced 5 of the 25 days. The last five years have been quieter than the long run: 5 days since 2022, against 1.7 a year before that.
Most hail here stays under 2 inches: only 2 of the 25 days on record passed it, 8%, the last on 2024-05-20. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in May, not April. 10 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 Harlan -- 6 of the county's 25 hail days -- then Defiance (4), Panama (4), Elk Horn (3) and Kirkman (3). Beyond those, NOAA names Shelby, Earling, Portsmouth and Westphalia on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Harlan | 3 | 3.00″ |
| 3 S Defiance | 3 | 1.75″ |
| Elk Horn | 2 | 1.75″ |
| Portsmouth | 2 | 1.75″ |
| Earling | 2 | 1.00″ |
The season runs April through August: 22 of the 25 hail days on record fall in those 5 months (88%). April is the single busiest month, with 7 of them (28%). That peak opens the window: the season starts at its worst and eases off from there. Hail has also been reported in September, outside that window. Reports span 6 of the 12 calendar months; the other 6 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| April | 7 |
| May | 4 |
| June | 5 |
| July | 3 |
| August | 3 |
| September | 3 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Westphalia. 1 hail day has already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-23 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2024-06-25 | 1.75″ | 3 |
| 2024-05-20 | 2.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-05-17 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-04-22 | 1.75″ | 1 |
| 2019-09-24 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2019-07-17 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2017-04-20 | 1.75″ | 1 |
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: Audubon County (16 hail days), Crawford County (18) and Harrison County (35). Shelby County sits in between.
Audubon County · Crawford County · Harrison 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, Shelby County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.