Benton County was hit as recently as 2026-07-04, 27 days ago. Benton County is hit in about half the years on record. 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 2021-08-28 near Sauk Rapids.
Colored swath = NOAA MRMS radar-estimated hail size; dots = NOAA SPC reports in Minnesota. Radar-indicated, not a guarantee of damage.
The last hail here fell on 2026-07-04, around St. Cloud. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Benton County addresses inside a hail swath above your size threshold into a door-knock list you can export, scoped to your approved markets.
Get free access Check an addressOur US-based call center calls the homeowners in this storm and books roof inspections straight onto your calendar. You work the storm; we fill the schedule. We dial -- you do not have to knock a single door.
See call-center options ->NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has logged 16 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 0.9 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 29 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. 8 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2022, with 3 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 4 days since 2022.
Roof-killing hail is routine here: 4 of the 16 days reached 2 inches or more, 25% of them, the last on 2022-05-12. They land in the same month as everything else, May. 6 of the 16 days reached golf-ball size, 1.75 inches or bigger.
Across the whole of Minnesota, see the Minnesota hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Gilman -- 5 of the county's 16 hail days -- then Sauk Rapids (4), Foley (4) and Rice (3).
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Sauk Rapids | 4 | 2.50″ |
| Rice | 3 | 1.00″ |
| Foley | 2 | 2.00″ |
| 5 Sw Gilman | 2 | 1.75″ |
| Gilman | 2 | 1.00″ |
The season runs May through August: 14 of the 16 hail days on record fall in those 4 months (88%). May is the single busiest month, with 5 of them (31%). That peak opens the window: the season starts at its worst and eases off from there. Hail has also been reported in March and September, outside that window. Reports span 6 of the 12 calendar months; the other 6 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| March | 1 |
| May | 5 |
| June | 2 |
| July | 5 |
| August | 2 |
| September | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1.5 inches near St. Cloud. 1 hail day has already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-04 | 1.50″ | 1 |
| 2022-06-23 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-05-12 | 2.00″ | 4 |
| 2022-05-09 | 1.50″ | 1 |
| 2021-08-28 | 2.50″ | 4 |
| 2019-07-26 | 2.50″ | 2 |
| 2018-08-25 | 1.50″ | 1 |
| 2017-07-09 | 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: Stearns County (46 hail days), Sherburne County (25) and Mille Lacs County (22). Every one of them takes more hail than Benton County.
Stearns County · Sherburne County · Mille Lacs County
Back to the Minnesota hail map or the U.S. hail map.
Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Benton County, Minnesota only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.