Custer County was hit as recently as 2026-07-04, 27 days ago. Custer County is hit in most years, and usually several times over. The largest stone on record here is 4.25 inches and 4.2 times the National Weather Service's 1 inch severe criterion, reported on 2013-06-21 near Fairburn.
Colored swath = NOAA MRMS radar-estimated hail size; dots = NOAA SPC reports in South Dakota. Radar-indicated, not a guarantee of damage.
The last hail here fell on 2026-07-04, around Pringle. A free SwathIQ account -- hand-reviewed, invite within 24-48h -- pulls Custer 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 158 separate hail days here since 2010 -- 9.3 a year over 17 years of record. Those days carry 377 separate reports between them, two or three on a typical one. No year since 2010 has gone by without at least one. The busiest single year was 2013, with 17 hail days. The last five years track the long-run rate, with 40 days since 2022.
26 of the 158 days reached 2 inches or more -- 16%, or about one hail day in 6, the last on 2026-07-04. They land in the same month as everything else, July. 61 of the 158 days reached golf-ball size, 1.75 inches or bigger.
Across the whole of South Dakota, see the South Dakota hail map and history.
Reports cluster nearest Hermosa -- 53 of the county's 158 hail days -- then Fairburn (39), Downtown Custer (27), Pringle (21) and Buffalo Gap (19). Beyond those, NOAA names Custer, Jewel Cave, Argyle, Folsom, Dewey, Wind Cave Visitor, Wind Cave Visitors Cent, Wind Cave Visitors and Hayward on more than one hail day apiece.
| Place | Hail days since 2010 | Largest stone |
|---|---|---|
| 5 NNW Fairburn | 21 | 2.50″ |
| Hermosa | 12 | 2.75″ |
| 2 NW Buffalo Gap | 9 | 4.00″ |
| 7 W Hermosa | 9 | 2.75″ |
| 5 WNW Hermosa | 7 | 2.00″ |
The season runs June through August: 137 of the 158 hail days on record fall in those 3 months (87%). July is the single busiest month, with 60 of them (38%). That peak sits inside the window rather than at either end. Hail has also been reported in April, May, September and October, outside that window. Reports span 7 of the 12 calendar months; the other 5 have never produced one.
| Month | Hail days |
|---|---|
| April | 3 |
| May | 13 |
| June | 44 |
| July | 60 |
| August | 33 |
| September | 3 |
| October | 2 |
That day put 3 reports on the map, the biggest 2.25 inches near Pringle. 3 hail days have already been reported this year.
| Date | Max hail | Reports |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-04 | 2.25″ | 3 |
| 2026-07-03 | 1.00″ | 5 |
| 2026-06-22 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-08-18 | 1.50″ | 1 |
| 2025-08-17 | 1.00″ | 2 |
| 2025-07-06 | 1.00″ | 1 |
| 2025-07-01 | 1.00″ | 4 |
| 2025-06-29 | 1.25″ | 4 |
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 4.25 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: Pennington County (224 hail days), Fall River County (94) and Lawrence County (121). Custer County sits in between.
Pennington County · Fall River County · Lawrence County
Back to the South Dakota hail map or the U.S. hail map.
Data & method: NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center reports + NOAA MRMS MESH radar, Custer County, South Dakota only. Radar-indicated and observation-based -- informational only, not a guarantee of damage or a valid claim.