Forestburg, SD Hail Storm – July 2025

What Happened

A severe hail storm crossed the Forestburg, South Dakota area on July 7, 2025, with peak confirmed hail of 2.5 inches and a long run of spotter-verified alerts through late afternoon and early evening. The storm produced repeated hail cores between 3:01 PM CDT and 7:10 PM CDT, with the most intense report at 5:30 PM CDT.

The first alerts came in around 3 PM CDT with 1.25-inch hail, followed by another 1.25-inch hail signal at 3:20 PM CDT. Radar confidence increased later in the cycle. At 3:49 PM CDT, dual-polarization radar detected 1.5-inch hail. Additional alerts followed at 3:59 PM CDT, 4:46 PM CDT, and 5:23 PM CDT, each verifying hail at 1 to 1.25 inches.

The strongest phase arrived late in the afternoon. At 5:30 PM CDT, radar and spotter verification supported a 2.5-inch hail estimate. That was followed by another 1.5-inch alert at 5:35 PM CDT, then 1.25-inch hail at 5:49 PM CDT and 1.5-inch hail at 6:06 PM CDT. Later alerts at 6:27 PM CDT, 6:44 PM CDT, and 7:10 PM CDT kept the hail threat active into the evening.

Field reports lined up with that sequence. Around 4:54 PM CDT, a spotter reported heavy rainfall and hail up to golf ball size for about 8 minutes. A later report at 5:25 PM CDT described lime-sized hail from social media photos. By 5:50 PM CDT, additional spotter-verified reports again described golf ball hail and heavy rain in the Menno area.

Damage Assessment

The surface reports show a hail storm that produced repeated large-stone impacts, not a brief isolated burst. Golf ball hail was confirmed more than once, and the 5:25 PM CDT photo report documented lime-sized hail, which matched the radar-driven escalation seen in the warning cycle. The hail core was active long enough to generate multiple spotter reports within the same hour.

Wind damage was limited in the reports tied to this event, but it was present. At 6:46 PM CDT, a spotter in Yankton reported large tree limbs down, with the timing estimated from radar. At 7:56 PM CDT, another report described very strong thunderstorm winds that broke two large branches from a healthy tree before very heavy rain started. Those reports sit outside the hail core but remain part of the same storm complex.

The strongest ground-truth signal came from the repeated hail size reports in and near the storm path. The damage picture is consistent with dent risk on vehicles, bruising to exposed crops, and roof impact on weaker cover materials across the areas where the storm passed in the warning area. The reports do not show a uniform damage pattern across every location. They do show a concentrated swath of large hail reports tied to the late-afternoon storm peak.

What Contractors Should Know

Forestburg and nearby towns in the warning area should be treated as a multi-pass hail event, not a single-cell report. The alert stream started early, then intensified again near 5:30 PM CDT, which leaves a wider field window for property checks across the afternoon and early evening. Crews should expect mixed claims, with some addresses showing only minor cosmetic impact and others carrying stronger hail signatures from the same storm cycle.

Forestburg, SD Hail Storm – July 2025

NWS WARNING AREAS · 72

What Happened

Damage Assessment

What Contractors Should Know

Storm Details

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