The most recent reported hail day was 2025-05-14 -- 1 year ago, with nothing reported since. Burke County is hit in most years, often more than once. The largest stone on record here is 2 inches, a hen egg and twice the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2011-05-10 near Glen Alpine.
Colored swath = NOAA MRMS radar-estimated hail size; dots = NOAA SPC reports in North Carolina. Radar-indicated, not a guarantee of damage.
The last hail here fell on 2025-05-14, around Valdese. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Burke 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 57 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 3.4 a year over 17 years of record. They carry 98 reports in total: most hail days here are logged from a single spot. 3 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2013, with 8 hail days. The last five years have been quieter than the long run: 7 days since 2022, against 4.2 a year before that.
Most hail here stays under 2 inches: only 2 of the 57 days on record passed it, 4%, the last on 2011-05-10. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in April, not July. Golf-ball size is rarer still: 1.75 inches or more on 7 of the 57 days.
Across the whole of North Carolina, see the North Carolina hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Morganton -- 27 of the county's 57 hail days -- then Glen Alpine (8), Valdese (6), Table Rock (6) and Icard (6). That one town is named on 47% of them. Beyond those, NOAA names Drexel, Jonas Ridge, Nebo, Pleasant Grove and Hildebran on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Morganton | 6 | 2.00″ |
| 5 Ssw Morganton | 3 | 1.50″ |
| 3 N Morganton | 3 | 1.25″ |
| Icard | 3 | 1.00″ |
| Glen Alpine | 2 | 2.00″ |
The season runs May through August: 47 of the 57 hail days on record fall in those 4 months (82%). July is the single busiest month, with 15 of them (26%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in March, April, 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 | 2 |
| April | 5 |
| May | 12 |
| June | 14 |
| July | 15 |
| August | 6 |
| September | 2 |
| October | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Valdese. No hail day has been reported here yet this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-05-14 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-05-08 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2023-08-07 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-06-26 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2022-07-06 | 1.75″ | 1 |
| 2022-06-02 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-05-01 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2020-07-21 | 1.00″ | 5 |
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 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: Caldwell County (24 hail days), McDowell County (29) and Catawba County (30). Burke County takes more hail than any of them.
Caldwell County · McDowell County · Catawba County
Back to the North Carolina hail map or the U.S. hail map.
Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Burke County, North Carolina only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.