Only One US State Had Its All-Time Hail Record Broken in 2024-2025: Texas (Vigo Park, 7.02 in)

USE CASE. Three groups recalibrate when a state hail-diameter record is broken: (1) crop insurance underwriters and the USDA Risk Management Agency reset state-level severe-weather exposure parameters in their actuarial models; (2) property reinsurance modelers (Verisk AIR, RMS Moody's, KCC) update return-period hail diameter curves used in catastrophe pricing; (3) building-code officials and IBHS researchers reconsider hail-impact-resistance test specifications when a new record falls outside the existing test envelope. RESULT. Of 51 US state-or-territory entities with both pre-2024 and 2024-2025 hail records in the Storm Events Database, exactly 1 had its all-time record broken: TEXAS, where Vigo Park / Swisher County recorded a 7.02 inch hailstone on June 2, 2024, breaking the previous Texas record of 6.42 inch hailstones at Hondo (April 2021) by a 0.60-inch margin. Two states had their records tied: NORTH CAROLINA at 4.50 inches (Robeson County, April 20, 2024, tying a 1974 Gaston County event) and MINNESOTA at 6.00 inches (Stevens County, July 31, 2024, tying a 1968 Murray County event). The other 48 evaluable states recorded their largest 2024-2025 hailstone at a value below the pre-2024 maximum. STRUCTURAL READING. Across a 76-year mature database, the per-year rate of new state hail-diameter records is structurally low because each record breaking nudges the ceiling permanently upward and pulls the next break further into the tail of the diameter distribution. A 24-month window producing 1 broken + 2 tied state records is consistent with the long-run rate; it is NOT evidence of an anomalous severe-weather climate signal in hail. The 7.02 inch Vigo Park stone is itself extreme — it is among the largest hail diameters in the entire 76-year Storm Events Database, surpassed only by the 9.99 inch Coffeyville KS stone of July 1961 (the all-time US record) and equalled by a small number of round-number 8.00 inch entries from the 1950s-1970s whose precision is uncertain. Modern verified-precision events at this size are rare. CAVEATS. (1) The MAGNITUDE column is set by the local NWS office at the time of the event and is sometimes rounded or approximated; the 7.02 inch value reflects the best post-hoc IBHS measurement after the storm chaser's initial 7.25 inch field claim. (2) The Texas record awaits final certification by the Texas State Climate Extremes Committee; the value in the NCEI Storm Events Database is the federal record-of-record. (3) The 'tied' status of the NC and MN records depends on the precision of the 1974 and 1968 entries, which were measured with mid-20th-century methods. (4) Several US territories and small jurisdictions have no hail events in the 2024-2025 window and are excluded from the comparison; the 51-entity universe is the practically relevant set.

Hail records are usually compared by the diameter of the largest stone observed during a single severe-weather event. NOAA tracks every hail event in the US from 1950 to today in a public database. I downloaded all 76 years of files and asked: how many US states had their all-time largest hail stone broken in 2024 or 2025? The answer is exactly one. Texas. On June 2, 2024, a storm chaser found a 7.02-inch hailstone in Vigo Park (Swisher County, in the southern Texas Panhandle) that broke the previous Texas record of 6.42 inches from Hondo, Texas in April 2021. The 7.02-inch stone is the second-largest hailstone ever recorded in the US Storm Events Database, after the legendary 9.99-inch Coffeyville Kansas stone from July 1961. Two other states tied — but did not break — their existing records: North Carolina at 4.50 inches (in Robeson County in April 2024, tying a 1974 record) and Minnesota at 6.00 inches (in Stevens County in July 2024, tying a 1968 record). All 48 other US states evaluated recorded their largest 2024-2025 hailstone at a value below the existing state record. Why this matters: the news cycle around extreme weather can give the impression that 'records are falling everywhere', and there is a real climate signal in some severe-weather metrics (heat extremes, single-day rainfall, fire-weather days). Hail diameter is NOT one of them. Across 76 years of NOAA data, the rate at which state hail records get broken is structurally low — every broken record raises the ceiling permanently, pulling the next break further into the tail of the distribution. A 24-month window with 1 broken + 2 tied records is a normal-rate window, not a surge. For crop insurance underwriters and property reinsurance modelers who price exposure based on the largest plausible hail event in a state, this means the only state that needs a parameter update right now is Texas, where the Vigo Park event extends the upper bound by half an inch.

TEXAS BROKEN: 6.42 in Hondo 2021 → 7.02 in Swisher County (Vigo Park) 2024-06-02 (delta +0.60) · NORTH CAROLINA TIED: 4.50 in Gaston County 1974 = 4.50 in Robeson County 2024-04-20 · MINNESOTA TIED: 6.00 in Murray County 1968 = 6.00 in Stevens County 2024-07-31

9.99 in 1961 (Coffeyville KS, all-time US record) · 8.00 in 1958, 1969, 1970, 1970, 1971, 2010 (round-number entries, precision uncertain) · 7.00 in 2003 · 6.42 in 2021 (Hondo TX, previous Texas record) · 6.00 in 2004

76 yearly files · 2,012,856 total event rows · 418,984 hail event rows · 51 US states with both pre-2024 and 2024-2025 hail records · 1 state with broken record · 2 states with tied record · 48 states whose 2024-2025 maximum was below the pre-2024 maximum