The most recent reported hail day was 2026-04-17, 105 days ago. Story County is hit in most years, often more than once. The largest stone on record here is 2.5 inches, a tennis ball and 2.5 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2023-05-07 near Ames.
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 2026-04-17, around Collins. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Story 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 36 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 2.1 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 140 separate reports between them, better than three on a typical one. 4 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2024, with 5 hail days. The last five years have run hotter than the long-run rate: 16 days since 2022, against 1.7 a year before that.
6 of the 36 days reached 2 inches or more -- 17%, or about one hail day in 6, the last on 2026-04-15. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in April, not May. 10 of the 36 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 Ames -- 15 of the county's 36 hail days -- then Nevada (10), Story City (8), Collins (7) and Gilbert (7). That one town is named on 42% of them. Beyond those, NOAA names Maxwell, Zearing, Huxley, Mccallsburg, Colo, Roland, Cambridge and Napier on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Nevada | 5 | 2.00″ |
| Story City | 4 | 2.50″ |
| Collins | 4 | 1.75″ |
| Maxwell | 4 | 1.75″ |
| Huxley | 3 | 2.00″ |
The season runs April through July: 29 of the 36 hail days on record fall in those 4 months (81%). May is the single busiest month, with 10 of them (28%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in March, August, 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 | 3 |
| April | 6 |
| May | 10 |
| June | 8 |
| July | 5 |
| August | 2 |
| September | 1 |
| October | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Collins. 2 hail days have already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-17 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2026-04-15 | 2.00″ | 11 |
| 2025-05-19 | 1.00″ | 3 |
| 2025-04-22 | 1.50″ | 4 |
| 2025-03-18 | 1.25″ | 1 |
| 2025-03-14 | 1.50″ | 3 |
| 2024-07-15 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2024-07-06 | 1.00″ | 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 2.5 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: Boone County (25 hail days), Hamilton County (13) and Hardin County (16). Story County takes more hail than any of them.
Boone County · Hamilton County · Hardin 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, Story County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.