Hail in Iowa, May 8, 1996

A strong warm front extended nearly east/west to the south of Iowa and had for the several days previous. The air mass to the south of the front was very warm, unstable, and moist. Dew point temperatures were in the middle 60s to the south of the front. The warm and moist air over ran cool and relatively dry air that was in place over Iowa. The result was a series of mesoscale convective systems. Several of them developed and moved east across Iowa during the night of the 8th and early morning of the 9th. The main weather feature associated with the thunderstorms was hail, though there were a few reports of high winds and at least two tornadoes touched down during the early morning hours of the 9th, which will be addressed later. The storms also produced heavy rainfall on the order of 2 to 4 inches over the south third of Iowa. The hail did minor damage since most of it was an inch diameter or less and the fact that the crops had not yet germinated.