Ozona, TX Hail Storm – April 2026

A severe hail storm tracked through Ozona, Texas on April 29, 2026, producing 5-inch stones and multiple spotter-verified impacts in the early evening. The event generated a series of NWS alerts and sustained radar cores from late afternoon into the late evening.

What Happened

NWS issued 10 alerts for the event between 3:52 PM CDT and 10:11 PM CDT. Early alerts around 3:52 PM detected a radar core consistent with roughly 1.6-inch hail. Subsequent radar detections and warnings tracked intermittent intense cores across the area, including radar-derived detections later in the evening near 10:11 PM that registered near 4.0-inch hail estimates. Several alerts between 6:30 PM and 8:30 PM combined radar signatures and spotter input to characterize repeat updraft strength over the Ozona corridor.

Field observers supplied the ground perspective that matched the radar picture. Around 7:03 PM CDT, spotters posted photographs on X showing very large stones, and a short time later a video at 7:08 PM CDT documented measured hail of 3 to 3.5 inches in diameter. Multiple mPING submissions between about 6:51 PM CDT and 7:01 PM CDT reported hen-egg to 2-inch stones across pockets of the town. Later public reports around 10:00 PM CDT on the north side of Lake Amistad, off Spur 406, described numerous hail stones near golf-ball size.

The alert timeline combines NWS warning polygons with radar-detected cores and direct spotter observations. Some NWS alerts were issued on warning-only wording where spotter input was not immediately available. Other alerts explicitly cited both radar detections and spotter reports, aligning the larger surface reports to the strongest radar returns that passed through Ozona in the early evening.

Damage Assessment

Field reports and radar indicate concentrated surface impacts in central Ozona during the early evening and a secondary corridor of smaller but widespread hail near Lake Amistad later that night. Photographs posted to social media networks around 7:03 PM CDT and the 7:08 PM CDT video provide photographed evidence of large stones and measurable accumulation on driveways and yards in central Ozona. Multiple mPING submissions report consistent 2-inch stones in nearby neighborhoods between 6:50 PM CDT and 7:05 PM CDT.

Late-evening public phone reports and social-media posts describe golf-ball-size hail near Spur 406 on the north side of Lake Amistad at about 10:00 PM CDT. Radar-detected cores between 8:00 PM CDT and 10:11 PM CDT show intermittent redevelopment along a track that continued northeast of the Ozona town center, matching the spatial separation between the early-evening large-stone reports and the later Lake Amistad reports.

Observed impacts in the submitted reports are concentrated at photographed locations. Photographic and video evidence from central Ozona documents stones capable of puncturing soft cladding and denting exposed vehicles where they were left outdoors. The Lake Amistad area reports are consistent with scouring and dents from frequent golf-ball-size impacts rather than the very large stones reported earlier in town.