Following an extensive scientific evaluation, officials declared that a hailstone discovered in 2024, wider than an official NFL football, is the largest hailstone ever recorded in the Lone Star State.
Veteran storm chasers Amy and Val Castor, reporting for Oklahoma City’s KWTV, were tracking a violent, tornadic supercell in 2024 when they stumbled upon the record-breaker.
As they navigated near Vigo Park—a small, unincorporated community situated between Amarillo and Lubbock—they found themselves caught in a barrage of baseball-sized hail.
Initially, Val Castor recognized the massive hailstone as a discarded plastic milk jug.
“I noticed what looked like a gallon jug of milk in the ditch. As I drove past it, I was thinking no way was this a hailstone, but I turned around and went back.”
The realization of what he was looking at left the veteran chaser stunned. “I could see it from probably 100 yards away. That’s the biggest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been chasing storms for more than 30 years.”
To cement the hailstone’s place in history, the State Climate Extremes Committee and the Texas state climatologist conducted a comprehensive review utilizing photographic evidence and 3D photogrammetry.
The colossal hailstone boasts a confirmed diameter of 7.1 inches (just over 18 centimeters), making it roughly the size of a whole pineapple. The 2024 find easily shattered the previous Texas titleholder—a 6.4-inch (16.4 cm) stone recovered in Hondo back in 2021.
While the Vigo Park monster now reigns supreme in Texas, it falls just shy of the United States national record. That title still belongs to a behemoth that plummeted onto Vivian, South Dakota, in July 2010, weighing in at nearly two pounds with a staggering confirmed diameter of 8 inches.
