The most recent reported hail day was 2026-04-14, 108 days ago. Wapello County is hit in about half the years on record. The largest stone on record here is 2.75 inches, a baseball and 2.8 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2026-04-02 near Ottumwa.
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 2026-04-14, around Ottumwa. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Wapello 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 18 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.1 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 42 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. 7 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2026, with 3 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 5 days since 2022.
4 of the 18 days reached 2 inches or more -- 22%, or about one hail day in 4, the last on 2026-04-02. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in March, not April. More than half of every hail day on record here -- 9 of 18 -- reached golf-ball size, 1.75 inches or bigger.
Across the whole of Iowa, see the Iowa hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Ottumwa -- 11 of the county's 18 hail days -- then Eldon (4), Agency (4) and Blakesburg (2). That one town is named on 61% of them.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| 1 NE Ottumwa | 4 | 1.75″ |
| Ottumwa | 3 | 1.25″ |
| Blakesburg | 2 | 2.75″ |
| Eldon | 2 | 2.00″ |
| 2 SSW Ottumwa | 2 | 1.00″ |
The season runs April through June: 15 of the 18 hail days on record fall in those 3 months (83%). April is the single busiest month, with 7 of them (39%). That peak opens the window: the season starts at its worst and eases off from there. Hail has also been reported in March and July, outside that window. Reports span 5 of the 12 calendar months; the other 7 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| March | 2 |
| April | 7 |
| May | 5 |
| June | 3 |
| July | 1 |
That day put 2 reports on the map, the biggest 1.75 inches near Ottumwa. 3 hail days have already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-14 | 1.75″ | 2 |
| 2026-04-02 | 2.75″ | 6 |
| 2026-03-10 | 2.00″ | 4 |
| 2023-06-24 | 2.50″ | 8 |
| 2023-03-31 | 1.75″ | 2 |
| 2020-05-14 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2018-07-19 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2018-06-28 | 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 2.75 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: Jefferson County (17 hail days), Monroe County (15) and Keokuk County (23). Wapello County sits in between.
Jefferson County · Monroe County · Keokuk 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, Wapello County, Iowa only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.