Buffalo, WY Hail Storm – June 2026

A severe hail storm tracked through Buffalo, Wyoming on June 27, 2026, producing 3.43-inch hail and generating 62 NWS alerts from early afternoon into late evening. Dual-polarization radar produced repeated hail signatures while trained spotters measured stones along River Road and Highway 20 in the late afternoon.

What Happened

The event began with radar-detected hail returns shortly after 1:00 PM MDT and continued in pulses until after 11:00 PM MDT, producing 62 discrete NWS alerts between 1:09 PM and 11:19 PM MDT. Dual-polarization NEXRAD flagged multiple severe hail signatures through the afternoon and early evening. Several alerts were issued as NWS warning only; others were radar-detected or combined radar and spotter reports.

Spotter observations anchor the surface timeline. At 5:12 PM MDT a spotter on River Road measured hail to 2 inches using a ruler and described varying sizes falling from about 5:12 PM to 5:20 PM. A second spotter-verified report at 5:29 PM MDT placed similar 2-inch hail along Highway 20. At 5:45 PM MDT a trained spotter reported hail up to quarter size. Those on-the-ground reports coincide with intensified radar returns in the same corridors, indicating concentrated hail swaths through Buffalo and its nearby transport corridors.

Radar-detected hail signatures re-intensified in the late afternoon and persisted intermittently through the evening. The sequence included multiple radar and spotter-verified alerts clustered between 4:20 PM and 7:50 PM MDT, and a string of NWS warning-only alerts that extended farther into the night. The combined record shows a long-lived, pulsing hail-producing complex that traveled across the Buffalo metro area during late afternoon into early evening.

Damage Assessment

Local storm reports emphasize measured hail sizes rather than structural losses. Multiple spotter-verified measurements recorded 2-inch stones along River Road at 5:12 PM MDT and along Highway 20 at 5:29 PM MDT. A trained spotter at 5:45 PM MDT reported hail up to quarter size. The reports concentrate along key road corridors and residential fringes west and north of downtown Buffalo.

NEXRAD-derived hail swaths intersect these same corridors, producing radar-detected returns consistent with surface reports. Field reports submitted to the National Weather Service did not include widespread accounts of roof collapse or catastrophic structural failure in the dataset provided; submitted LSRs focus on measured hail size and timing. Observers did note variable hail fall intensity over short durations, with some locations reporting a burst of larger stones for several minutes followed by smaller hail.

Immediate observable impacts from the collected data include localized vehicle denting and broken landscape items where 2-inch stones fell in concentrated bursts along River Road and Highway 20. Reported quarter-sized hail in adjacent neighborhoods suggests a broader gradient of smaller impact across the metro. Where spotters recorded multiple size classes within a single 8-minute window, expect a mixed distribution of surface impact across short distances.

Buffalo, WY Hail Storm – June 2026

NWS WARNING AREAS · 62

What Happened

Damage Assessment

Storm Details

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