Olney, TX Hail Storm – April 2025

What Happened

A severe hail storm crossed the Olney, TX area on April 3, 2025, with a peak confirmed stone size of 2 inches and nine NWS alerts tied to the event. Radar and spotter verification repeated through the early morning hours as the storm cycled across north Texas before daylight.

The first hail alerts came at 3:04 AM CDT and 3:51 AM CDT, both calling for 1.75-inch hail with radar and spotter verified confidence. Additional alerts followed at 4:22 AM CDT and 4:59 AM CDT, with hail sizes shifting between 1.75 inches and 1 inch as the storm evolved. By 5:33 AM CDT, the alert size increased to 2 inches, then held near that level again at 6:18 AM CDT before easing to 1 inch in the final two alerts at 6:45 AM CDT and 6:48 AM CDT.

Field reports lined up with that timing. A spotter-verified Facebook photo near Cisco at 5:53 AM CDT showed tennis ball size hail, estimated from radar location and time. A pair of mPING reports at 5:49 AM CDT and 6:01 AM CDT placed 2.00-inch and 2.25-inch stones in the storm path. Another spotter-verified report at 6:02 AM CDT described 1 to 2 inch hail in Gunsight, and a 6:07 AM CDT report placed golf ball size hail about 5 miles south of Wayland.

Damage Assessment

The field reports point to a narrow but intense hail swath with multiple locations receiving stones at or above 2 inches in diameter. That includes the 2.25-inch mPING report, the tennis ball size hail near Cisco, and the 2-inch reports near Gunsight. The sequence shows repeated large-hail bursts rather than a single isolated core pass.

The reports also show how quickly the hail core shifted across the region. Cisco, Gunsight, and the area south of Wayland each received verified hail reports within a short morning window. The storm did not stay uniform. It pulsed, with the largest stones appearing in clustered reports around 5:49 AM CDT through 6:07 AM CDT.

For exposed surfaces, that pattern usually means a mix of dents, broken soft materials, and debris in the heaviest path. Vehicles parked outside during the strongest bursts likely took the worst impact where the 2-inch and larger stones were reported. Roof, gutter, and skylight checks matter most in the towns and rural corridors where the verified reports landed close together.

The radar and spotter record also suggests the event had enough consistency to produce repeated hail impacts across multiple alerts. Nine separate warnings over nearly four hours is a long hail sequence for a single morning storm cycle. The ground reports confirm that the storm was not just producing warning-level hail on radar. It was reaching the surface in several locations.

What Contractors Should Know

Start with the morning route. The report cluster runs from Cisco to Gunsight to the area south of Wayland, with the strongest verified hail between 5:49 AM CDT and 6:07 AM CDT. Crews should focus on roof slopes, ridge caps, vents, pipe boots, soft metals, and vehicle lots in the path of the larger hail reports. The peak stones were large enough to leave obvious impact marks on unsupported surfaces.