In storms’ wake, a Boulder conference on hailstorms

Members of the scientific and business community will be gathering this week to discuss all things hailrelated during the North American Workshop on Hail and Hail Storms.

“Hail research in the United States has languished since the 1980s,” said Andrew Heymsfield, senior scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research.

“I’ve been to two European workshops. For that reason I thought it would be totally appropriate to have one in the United States or North America.”

The threeday conference, starting Tuesday and hosted by NCAR and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, is not open to the public.

Organizers said in a news release that hailstorms cause more than $10 billion in damage annually across North America, and the costs are expected to increase because of climate change and more develop ment in hail prone areas.

The workshop is expected to focus on convection and hail in a changing climate, hail climatology and risk; hail damage, losses and mitigation; hail detection and forecasting; and microphysics and dynamics of hailstorms.

Ian Giammanco, Lead Research Meteorologist for the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, said that pointing to climate change as a cause of more widespread hail damage is more difficult to prove and that more research is needed; factors such as urban sprawl and larger home sizes are definite culprits.

He added that hail accounts for a large majority — about 70 percent — of the damage associated with rotating super cell thunderstorms, vastly outpacing lightning and tornadoes.

Giammanco’s organization, according to its website, conducts “objective scientific research to identify and promote the most effective ways to strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natu ral disasters and other causes of loss.”

Workshop organizers contend that hail is also a public safety threat and give as an example the storm that struck Colorado Springs on Monday that dropped softballsized hail stones at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, injuring 14 people, also killing four zoo birds and a meerkat pup. About 400 cars in the parking lot were heavily damaged.

Boulder County also was hit by a severe hailstorm in midJune which dropped 3inch hail stones in Superior and damaged cars and crops around the county.

Heymsfield added that the need exists for a hailpenetrating research aircraft, because the last one in use was retired in 2003.

He said a new aircraft has been identified for use and is currently in Boulder but he declined to elaborate.

“What we hope is to bring together a wide diversity of communities that are working on different aspects of the problem,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.