Colorado Springs, CO Hail Storm – May 2025

What Happened

A severe hail storm crossed Colorado Springs, CO on May 28, 2025, with the largest verified stones reaching 2 inches and multiple radar-detected hail cores through the afternoon and early evening. Field reports during the event also confirmed hail as small as one-half inch and three-quarters of an inch.

The first alert came at 12:54 PM MDT with 1.5-inch hail confidence tied to radar and a spotter verification. Additional warnings followed at 1:25 PM, 2:27 PM, 2:35 PM, and 2:37 PM MDT as the storm renewed over the metro area and nearby corridors. By 2:45 PM MDT, a further radar and spotter-based alert still carried 1.25-inch hail potential.

Spotter reports clustered shortly after 2:40 PM MDT. mPING observers reported dime-size hail at 2:38 PM, 2:41 PM, and 2:43 PM MDT. Two separate half-inch reports came in at 2:40 PM and 2:51 PM MDT. Those reports put real stones on the ground while radar continued to show larger hail aloft and within the warning area.

Activity intensified again in the late afternoon. A 4:15 PM MDT alert carried 1.75-inch hail confidence from dual-polarization radar. More hail detections followed at 4:50 PM, 4:51 PM, 5:37 PM, 5:47 PM, and 5:54 PM MDT. The 5:54 PM MDT warning carried the event’s highest radar-derived hail estimate at 2 inches. Alerts continued through 7:42 PM MDT, with hail sizes tapering from 1.75 inches to 1 inch as the storm cycle weakened.

Damage Assessment

The field reports show scattered small hail at the surface during the early part of the event, even as radar kept detecting larger hail signatures in and near the warning area. The reported stones were mostly dime-size and half-inch, which points to intermittent ground impacts rather than a single uniform hail swath across the entire metro.

The timing of the reports matters. The surface observations arrived within minutes of the strongest early afternoon warnings, which places hail on the ground while the storm was still organizing. The later radar-detected 1.75-inch and 2-inch alerts suggest the hail core strengthened again after the first spotter reports, with the heaviest impacts more likely in the later afternoon pulse around 4:15 PM to 5:54 PM MDT.

No field report in the supplied data confirmed 2-inch hail at the surface, but the radar sequence shows repeated large-hail detections over several hours. For crews working this event, that means the roof and vehicle claims picture should be checked in more than one wave, not only around the first set of reports. The metro-wide warning sequence also points to multiple neighborhoods being exposed at different times as the storm moved and re-formed.

What Contractors Should Know

Colorado Springs sits in a broad urban footprint with mixed residential, commercial, and light-industrial exposure. For a storm like this, field teams should expect hail impact patterns to vary block by block. Early afternoon reports were smaller, but later radar-derived hail estimates reached 1.75 inches and 2 inches. Roof slopes, open parking areas, and west- and south-facing exposures should be examined first where the storm passed under the strongest cores.

Colorado Springs, CO Hail Storm – May 2025

NWS WARNING AREAS · 47

What Happened

Damage Assessment

What Contractors Should Know

Storm Details

More from Colorado Springs