The most recent reported hail day was 2024-08-17 -- 1 year ago, with nothing reported since. Catawba County is hit in most years. 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 2018-07-21 near Hickory.
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 2024-08-17, around Claremont. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Catawba 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 30 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.8 a year over 17 years of record. They carry 46 reports in total: most hail days here are logged from a single spot. 5 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2017, with 4 hail days. The last five years have been quieter than the long run: 3 days since 2022, against 2.2 a year before that.
3 of the 30 days reached 2 inches or more -- 10%, or about one hail day in 10, the last on 2018-07-21. They land in the same month as everything else, July. Golf-ball size is rarer still: 1.75 inches or more on 5 of the 30 days.
Across the whole of North Carolina, see the North Carolina hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Hickory -- 13 of the county's 30 hail days -- then St. Stephens (5), Conover (4), Claremont (4) and Newton (3). That one town is named on 43% of them. Beyond those, NOAA names Catawba and Maiden on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Conover | 3 | 1.50″ |
| 2 Ne Hickory | 2 | 1.25″ |
| St. Stephens | 2 | 1.25″ |
| 3 Se Catawba | 2 | 1.00″ |
| 4 E Claremont | 2 | 1.00″ |
The season runs May through August: 26 of the 30 hail days on record fall in those 4 months (87%). July is the single busiest month, with 11 of them (37%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in February, March, April and September, outside that window. Reports span 8 of the 12 calendar months; the other 4 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| February | 1 |
| March | 1 |
| April | 1 |
| May | 3 |
| June | 9 |
| July | 11 |
| August | 3 |
| September | 1 |
That day put 1 report on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Claremont. No hail day has been reported here yet this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-08-17 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2024-05-15 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-07-01 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2021-06-14 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2019-08-23 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2019-07-11 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2018-07-21 | 2.00″ | 2 |
| 2018-05-10 | 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 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: Lincoln County (17 hail days), Iredell County (29) and Caldwell County (24). Catawba County takes more hail than any of them.
Lincoln County · Iredell County · Caldwell 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, Catawba County, North Carolina only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.