McDowell County was hit as recently as 2026-07-18, 13 days ago. McDowell County is hit in most years. 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 2011-04-09 near Marion.
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 2026-07-18, around Dysartsville. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls McDowell 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 29 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 1.7 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 58 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. 5 of those 17 years produced none at all. The busiest single year was 2012, with 5 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 9 days since 2022.
4 of the 29 days reached 2 inches or more -- 14%, or about one hail day in 7, the last on 2023-07-01. Those big days do not follow the county's usual calendar: most of them fall in April, not June. Golf-ball size is rarer still: 1.75 inches or more on 7 of the 29 days.
Across the whole of North Carolina, see the North Carolina hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Marion -- 15 of the county's 29 hail days -- then Old Fort (10), Nebo (4), Dysartsville (3) and Sugar Hill (2). That one town is named on 52% of them.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| Marion | 5 | 1.75″ |
| Dysartsville | 3 | 1.00″ |
| 4 Wsw Old Fort | 2 | 1.75″ |
| 3 S Old Fort | 2 | 1.25″ |
| 2 SW Dysartsville | 2 | 1.00″ |
The season runs May through July: 24 of the 29 hail days on record fall in those 3 months (83%). June is the single busiest month, with 10 of them (34%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in April and August, outside that window. Reports span 5 of the 12 calendar months; the other 7 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| April | 2 |
| May | 8 |
| June | 10 |
| July | 6 |
| August | 3 |
That day put 2 reports on the map, the biggest 1 inch near Dysartsville. 1 hail day has already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-18 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2025-06-25 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2025-05-08 | 1.75″ | 5 |
| 2023-07-25 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-07-02 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2023-07-01 | 2.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-06-16 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2022-06-15 | 1.00″ | 2 |
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: Rutherford County (28 hail days), Burke County (57) and Buncombe County (29). McDowell County sits in between.
Rutherford County · Burke County · Buncombe 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, McDowell County, North Carolina only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.