Hail Repair in Merriam, KS
Merriam is small, but the hail around it is not. See why its NOAA count runs high, why May carries it and what PDR can fix on your car.
Merriam is small on the map, but its hail file is not. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) logged 162 reports of 1 inch hail or larger within 10 miles of the city from 2010 to 2025. Only Shawnee, Lenexa, Kansas City, Kansas, and Gladstone log more. May alone brought 51 of those reports. The reason the count runs so high is mostly the method. Every city gets the same size circle, and Merriam's takes in big stretches of its neighbors. For your car, though, a dent counts the same whichever side of the city line the stone fell on.
A small city, a wide circle
Picture a circle 20 miles across, centered on Merriam. It reaches into Shawnee, Overland Park and Kansas City, Kansas, and east across State Line Road into Missouri. That is how a city this size can log 162 reports. Many of them describe hail in the area around Merriam, not only inside its limits. A storm crossing Shawnee or Overland Park can put reports inside Merriam's circle without a stone touching Merriam itself.
Behind each report sits one observation of hail and a size for the largest stone, which is often a rough estimate. One storm can produce a string of them. The same circle also lets a single report count for Merriam and a neighbor at once.
Golf ball size or larger makes up 36 of the 162 reports, spread over 15 days. Two reports reached baseball size. Both came on March 13, 2024, the day of the 3.5 inch record. Only five years on file passed without golf ball hail near Merriam: 2012, 2013, 2015, 2020 and 2022.
The latest 1 inch day was September 16, 2025, when six reports came in near Merriam, the largest at golf ball size.
May brings 51 reports
May holds 51 of Merriam's 162 reports, nearly a third. April follows with 27 and March with 25, so the two early months run almost even. June and September follow, at 23 and 19. July, August and October stay light, at 7, 8 and 2. Nothing appears from November through February.
March through May together hold 103 reports, about 64 percent of the record. That makes Merriam's hail mostly a spring story. If your car parks outside, the weeks from early March to the end of May are the ones to plan around. A garage, a carport or a covered spot at work all help.
March matters more here than its reputation suggests. Merriam's golf ball list includes two March days, March 6, 2017, and March 13, 2024. Each brought 12 reports.
Two big days in 2024
The spring of 2024 holds both of Merriam's standout days. March 13 brought 12 reports and the 3.5 inch record. Then May 8 brought 18 reports, topping out at 2 inches. No other golf ball day near Merriam matches that count. Hail reached 12 metro cities on March 13 and 14 on May 8.
May 19, 2025, followed with 13 reports, and May 26, 2016, with 11. Those three May days alone, in 2016, 2024 and 2025, account for 42 of the 51 May reports. So a few heavy days drive the May total, rather than a steady drip of small ones.
Older golf ball days are smaller. April 3, 2011, and July 2, 2011, each brought four reports. April 27, 2014, brought five.
Merriam along Interstate 35
Merriam sits in northeast Johnson County, with Interstate 35 running through the middle of town. Shawnee Mission Parkway crosses the city east to west. Shawnee lies to the west, Overland Park to the south and Kansas City, Kansas, just to the north. Prairie Village sits a short way southeast. Kansas City, Kansas, has its own page too, with the same 3.5 inch record.
If the car sits at a work lot near Interstate 35 during the day, the crew can meet it there, with the owner's okay.
Ask about cracked paint first
A stone of 3.5 inches is the kind that can crack paint. A crack means that panel likely needs paint work, which PDR does not do. The rest of the car may be simpler than it looks. One cracked panel does not turn the whole job into body shop work, and the estimate should say which panels go where. You hear that at the estimate, panel by panel, before anything is decided. What PDR cannot fix covers the rest of the limits. If you are weighing a claim, does a hail claim raise rates lists what to ask your carrier. Call for a free assessment.
Hail within 10 miles of Merriam
Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center hail reports, retrieved October 7, 2026. The 2025 file is SPC's file for the current year, and it can still be revised. A report is one observation, not one storm.
Hail Repair Questions in Merriam
Because the count does not stop at the city limits. Every city in the data gets a circle of the same size around one point, however small the city is. Merriam's circle takes in parts of Shawnee, Overland Park, Kansas City, Kansas, and Missouri. A report anywhere inside it counts here, and it can count for a neighbor too. The hail near your car is real either way.
It landed inside Merriam's circle, which reaches well past the city limits. SPC logged 12 reports near Merriam that day, and two of them reached baseball size, including the 3.5 inch stone. The same mark appears for Shawnee, Lenexa and Kansas City, Kansas. If your car was parked outside anywhere in the area that day, have every single panel checked closely.
Start with the roof, the hood and the trunk lid, since they face the sky. Look at them from a low angle in daylight, where dents show up as wobbles in the reflection. Take photos before the car is washed. Then call for a free assessment to get a count, panel by panel, and a straight answer on which dents may not come out.
Get the Dents Out, Keep the Paint
Call for a Free AssessmentFree assessment. No commitment. You see the dent count before anything is decided.