Kansas City Hail: April 3, 2011

Hail that reaches almost the whole metro is rare. Hail that does it with 3 inch stones is rarer. On this Sunday in April, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged hail of 1 inch or larger near 19 of the 20 cities in this record. The largest reports measured 3 inches. No day on file reached all 20, and only four reached 19. Of those four, this one carried the biggest stones.

So if your car was parked almost anywhere in the metro that day, a report was logged near your city. Here is where the hail ran biggest, the one city it skipped and what the date can do for you now.

Biggest stones on the south side

The 3 inch reports came near Belton, Grandview, Lee's Summit and Raymore. All four sit on the south side of the metro.

Those cities also took the most reports. Raymore logged 12, Lee's Summit 11 and Grandview 10. In each one, no other golf ball day on file brought as many.

Golf ball size hail, 1.75 inches and up, was reported near 16 cities in the record. That includes every Kansas city that logged hail, from Shawnee and Lenexa to Olathe, Overland Park, Leawood, Merriam and Prairie Village. It reached north to Gladstone and Liberty, and east to Blue Springs, Grain Valley and Raytown.

The Kansas side had a ceiling, though. Every Kansas city that logged hail topped out at exactly golf ball size. Overland Park logged seven reports and Olathe six, and none of them went bigger.

North of the river, Liberty logged seven reports and Gladstone five. Both stopped at golf ball size too.

Three cities stayed under golf ball size. Kansas City, Missouri, topped out at 1.5 inches. Independence and Parkville topped out at 1 inch.

Only Kansas City, Kansas, logged no report of 1 inch or larger. It was the single gap in a day that touched everyone else.

Five of the six cities outside the 20 logged hail as well. Gardner and Kearney each logged five reports, topping out at golf ball size. Leavenworth, Platte City and Harrisonville topped out at 1 inch.

Set beside the other wide days

Four days in this record put hail near 19 of the 20 cities. This was the first of them. The others came on April 26, 2016, May 26, 2016, and March 6, 2017.

Five years passed before the second one. Nothing between 2011 and 2016 came as close to covering the metro.

Their top sizes were 1.75, 2 and 2.75 inches. At 3 inches, April 3, 2011, sits above all three.

The golf ball count ranks high too. Sixteen cities is the second highest total in the record for one day. Only March 6, 2017, beat it, with 18.

Look across the 25 widest hail days and only two logged bigger stones. September 18, 2010, brought 5.5 inches, and March 13, 2024, brought 3.5.

April holds 7 of those 25 days, more than any other month. The same spring added one more. On May 25, 2011, hail of 1 inch or larger reached 10 cities in the record, topping out at 1.5 inches.

Every wide day is laid out on the Kansas City hail history page. For how the months stack up across the metro, read when is hail season in Kansas City.

What 3 inch hail can leave

Three inches sits above baseball size on SPC's scale. Stones like that can chip paint or fold a sharp crease into a panel. PDR may not take those dents out fully, and the estimate is where you should hear which ones.

Nine cities in the record topped out at golf ball size that day. Hail that size often leaves a dent with the paint still whole. That is the kind PDR is built for.

If your car took that hail

Start with the date. Your carrier calls it the date of loss, and this page can help you name it. With reports near 19 cities, April 3, 2011, fits most of the metro.

The record has a hard limit, though. It counts a report when it was logged within 10 miles of a city's center point. That is not your driveway. It cannot place a stone on your car, and it is not proof of damage.

If you have photos from that spring, check their dates against April 3 and May 25, 2011. Both are wide days in the record, about seven weeks apart.

The proof is on the car. Photos of each panel, taken before any repair, show what it took. A dent count, panel by panel, gives you a number to bring to the call.

After this long, timing matters. Your policy sets the window for reporting a loss. Before you build a claim around a 2011 date, ask your carrier how it treats a loss that old.

If the dents are still on the car, the count is the place to start. Call for a free assessment.