F5Chaser

Giant ice chunk fell near Vivian last week

A giant chunk of hail that smashed into the South Dakota prairie Friday night might become the heaviest in U.S. history.

It's also among the largest, depending on how it's measured - and whether a committee of scientists agrees.

The hailstone weighed almost 2 pounds. It was 18.5 inches in circumference and 8 inches in diameter when measured over the weekend, after considerable melting.

Members of the National Climate Extremes Committee - which certifies these types of records - are planning a teleconference today to discuss the matter, said James Zdrojewski, who is on the committee. It's up to the committee to make the record official.

Zdrojewski said late Tuesday the group had not reached any conclusions yet.

He said the South Dakota hailstone weighed about 1 pound, 15 ounces.

If confirmed, that would make it the heaviest hailstone in U.S. history. The current record - from a storm over Coffeyville, Kan., on Sept. 3, 1970 - is 1.67 pounds, according to records from the National Climatic Data Center.

The largest hailstone was 7 inches in diameter and 18.75 inches in circumference. It fell June 22, 2003, in Aurora, Neb.

Scott said there were larger hailstones that fell in his yard.

"The only reason I went out and picked this one up is because it had a whole bunch of fingers sticking out of it," he said. "These would take your head off. They were jagged with the fingers sticking out of them - they were wicked."

Some hailstones from the storm bounced four or five times when they landed, but "most of them just smacked right into the ground and stayed," he said.

And Scott's hailstone wasn't the only Bunyan-esque piece of ice in town.

The massive chunk of ice in Punk Strom's deep freeze weighed 1.8 pounds when he put it on the scale Monday at the Vivian Post Office. It would fill a gallon can, Strom said.

"It melted a lot," he said. "It laid outside for an hour and a half before I found it. ... I'll probably just leave it in the deep freeze and brag about it."

The Rapid City Journal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20107280302