Summer turns to winter: Hailstorm drops temperature from 90s to 50s
It looked and felt more like winter in part of Texas after a hailstorm coated the ground in ice and caused the temperature to plunge almost 40 degrees.
Quarter-sized hail piled up several inches in Marathon, Texas, on May 29, while the temperature dropped from the 90s to the 50s Fahrenheit.
When a thunderstorm hits on a hot day, it can quickly reduce the temperature from 90 degrees Fahrenheit to 70, but to get much colder, you need hail -- and a lot of it.
Harry Weinman witnessed such a storm on Wednesday evening in Marathon, Texas. Weinman told AccuWeather that his car thermometer dropped from 93 to 53 degrees in a few minutes. Quarter-sized hail piled up several inches deep and stripped leaves from the trees, changing the landscape into what looked like a winter wonderland.
A hail storm creates a winterlike landscape, dropping the temperature from the 90s into the 50s on May 29, 2024, in Marathon, Texas. (Harry Weinman)
A rare weather condition called "hail fog" soon transpired, caused by the hail cooling the surrounding air to its dew point.
A nearby Ambient Weather station in the northeastern part of the town reported a drop from 84 F to 62 F -- 22 degrees -- in only five minutes. Thirty minutes later, that same station reported a chilly 55 degrees. Other weather stations in the area showed similar drops in a short amount of time, some as much as 37 degrees lower than before the storm.
Temperature graph for the evening of May 29, 2024. (AccuWeather/AmbientWeather)
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