Mentor, OH Hail Storm – August 2026

A hail-producing thunderstorm tracked through Mentor, Ohio on August 22, 2026, producing 1.75-inch stones and a mix of radar-detected and NWS warning-driven alerts. The event lasted from late morning into the evening and generated 29 separate NWS alerts along the metro corridor.

What Happened

The storm activity began in mid-day and intensified in the late afternoon and early evening. NWS warning-only alerts for 1.0-inch hail appeared at 12:32 PM EDT and again at 1:06 PM EDT. Dual-polarization radar detected larger echoes shortly after, including a radar-derived 1.44-inch detection at 1:09 PM EDT. Spotters submitted quarter-size hail reports at 1:03 PM EDT.

A renewed pulse developed in late afternoon. Radar-derived detections between 5:00 PM and 6:10 PM EDT recorded elevated hail signatures, and NWS warnings continued through the period. Spotters reported larger stones in the early evening – two identical mPING entries at 5:22 PM EDT listed golf-ball size hail, and multiple social-media photos arrived around 6:25 PM EDT showing hail at the surface. Local observers in Ridgway reported golf-ball-sized hail at 6:30 PM EDT. Additional radar detections later in the evening registered radial hail estimates up to about 1.35 inches around 8:29 PM EDT and 1.12 inches at 9:10 PM EDT. The NWS issued repeated warning-only alerts through 9:10 PM EDT, producing a 29-alert sequence for the metro area.

Throughout the event, the reporting mix included NWS warning-only alerts, dual-polarization radar detections, and multiple spotter-verified submissions. Field reports were concentrated in the Mentor metro area with notable clusters in and near Ridgway during the 5:15–6:30 PM EDT window.

Damage Assessment

Field reports and submitted photos document surface impacts concentrated in Mentor and the Ridgway neighborhood. Two identical spotter reports at 5:22 PM EDT recorded golf-ball-sized hail. Several additional spotters submitted photographs at 6:25 PM EDT that depict hail on the ground; observers in Ridgway specifically reported golf-ball-sized hail at 6:30 PM EDT. Earlier in the day, observers logged quarter-size hail at 1:03 PM EDT, indicating intermittent cores of small-to-moderate hail moved through the area before the larger stones arrived in the evening.

Radar detections align with the times and locations of the spotter reports, showing multiple radar-derived hail echoes between early afternoon and late evening. The combination of spotter-verified golf-ball reports and radar detections indicates localized areas that received the largest stones within the Mentor metro footprint. Reports are clustered by time: an afternoon pulse near 1:00 PM EDT with quarter-size hail, and a concentrated early-evening pulse between roughly 5:15 PM and 6:30 PM EDT that produced the larger stones documented in multiple field submissions.

No official damage survey is included in these field reports. The available ground-truth entries and photographs identify where hail reached the surface and where contractor inspections should begin.