What to do in a hailstorm?

Driving at 80 miles in a hailstorm is a recipe for disaster. One the impact of the hail is tremendous on the windshield, the visibility is not that great and driving on top of it is more slippery. It is better to be safe than sorry. If you are not convinced on what to do with all the information many members of this site gave to you, you only have 2 things to do. 1st: Next time you encounter a hailstorm in front of you continue to see if you are right. 2nd: Next time pull over and compere you experience. Only this way you are going to learn.

Good luck

I already did the first.

Most certainly get off at the nearest exit or if no exit is close, pull to the side with 4-way hazard flasher on until the storm passes.

If I'm lucky, I can get under an overpass.

I agree that with small hailstones, you can keep on driving, and of course, baseball-size hail is relatively rare… though what starts as nickel-size hail can get bigger in seconds in a storm.

I'm curious: did the rental company charge you for the damage to the car in the hailstorm which was certainly not your fault and is in the Act of God category? Rental contracts are extremely one-sided and many times, rental car companies have gone after people for things that weren't their fault especially with customers who didn't buy their ridiculously priced insurance.

The exponential speed of the hail and your car could cause so much more damage than if you were sitting still.

I'd say pull over and hunker down.

and wait on the shoulder until the hail stops.

In case your wife doesn't have an answer....

2 cars of identical weight and construction hitting head on at 50 mph is like a car at 50 mph hitting an immovable flat surface. It is just like having a steel plate (or piece of saran wrap) between the cars. One car prevents the other from crossing an imaginary plane.

It is identical to a car going 100 mph hitting a car that is initially stationary, not an immovable surface. The stationary car would yield, but the immovable surface would not.

High school physics explains this, but it's nice a demonstration does, too.

In the rain, you body must pass every point between you and your destination. The water in that volume of air will wet you no matter how fast you travel. However, rain also falls on you if you are standing still, so getting out of the rain as fast as possible should be your objective.

I assume you meant incremental?

I would not be driving... I would move my car under some kind of underpass or get off the road and drive to a covered garage... Don't want my baby damaged.

Not necessarily.

I have no way of knowing the intent of "donbadabon", but he could have meant "incremental" or he could have meant "exponential". Either word would be correct, depending upon whether or not he intended to write "speed" or actually intended to write "energy".

"Incremental" is obviously correct when used with "speed", but the actual damage is related to the energy dissipated by the hail impacting upon the car. Energy is related to the square of the speed of impact, so "exponential" would have been correct if he had written "energy" instead of "speed".

With best wishes,
- Tom -

Oh, but they do get hit now and again, despite efforts to avoid. The radome commonly gets rather mussed up in relatively mild hail. It can look ugly without being at all serious, as it is not pressure vessel structure. Working up from there, cockpit windows get damaged or even broken out (which is impressive, those things are _tough_).

A few pictures:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_rsUldUURuFM/STqfKVCfVuI/AAAAAAAAAD...
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/235/img2151zvy5.jpg/
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/385180510_ee320151d7.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l185/DryMonkey/HailDamage....

But the really, really serious problem comes when enough hail is ingested into the engines to make them lose the ability to keep the plane in flight. That can spoil the whole day for all concerned.

Not to be picky, but square and exponential are not the same!

Not in Ontario, Canada. That's 130 KPH and the speed limit is 100 KPH. 120 in a 100 zone is about as much leeway that the cops will give in Ontario and doing that during a hail storm might even be a Careless Driving charge.

That could be be worse than driving on snow at 80 MPH, because weather that produces a hail storm is too warm to warrant snow tires.

Betting that Mr King will be bowing out of this thread soon, since he's not getting the support he'd hope for.

But starting to get the feeling that I am vastly outnumbered.

Having been in a major hailstorm in Montana once, I realized that I was driving on ice so I slowly came to a stop and waited for it to end. I did not even consider the damage to my car for that is why I have insurance.
What really bothered me was when it stopped I stepped outside and the clouds above looked like elephant feet which I had read was tornado clouds.
My young daughter said out loud "Is this the end of the world?
We were camping on this trip but that night we spent the night in a motel and the sirens were blaring all night.

I bow to your pressure. I will tell the wife she was right soon.

Actually, they ARE the same. Square is a specific case of exponential.

"Exponential" means "raised to a power". So, "X cubed", which is "X*X*X", is "X raised to the third power", and "X*X*X*X*X" is "X raised to the fifth power". Similarly, "X squared", which is "X*X", is "X raised to the second power".

With best wishes,
- Tom -

Nope! Not quite. But this is not the forum to give private math classes anyway.

...that she was right. She is reveling in vindication.

I have been in this very situation.
STOP!!!
1. 20 mph hail stones don't do near the damage that 100 mph stones do.
2. If you don't know which way the storm is moving, you are better off stopping.

Learned some interesting points of view-

I agree!

I agree with this. Especially since you don't know if the other drivers on the road are going to go crazy. Hailstorms don't last very long anyway.

Everyone keeps talking about the car windows when they should actually be thinking about the ice cubes on the road. Hail is ice and you will be driving on it. Consider your ability to drive and steer on ice.
Your window should be second thought in this case.

get off at the next exit and look for a Hooters or a Texas Roadhouse or equivalent.

Didn't think about this. Good point.

I had my wife with me and we are vegans, so HOOTERS IT IS!

Since I am a ATGATT (All the gear all the time) The helmet and gear helps with small hail. I stop or find shelter when on my motorcycle...and have been there and done that a few times.

All of sudden you associate structures with shelter... I was even allow to park on a porch of a country store (had loading ramp)...country cemeteries often have large trees and food pavilions...car washes, underpasses and service stations offer good protection..

Oh, Motorcycle or like gear is great for when you are in a tornado warning area..even at home...Have a friend who advised his wife to dress in the gear and get in closet...the tornado leveled the house...she walked away without a scratch. Helmet took a beating!

to pull over. Preferably, at a nearby diner !

have been recommended for people that live in tornado prone areas.

Depends on which way the hail is falling. If it's falling head on, pull over. If going in the same direction, keep going or speed up to match the hail speed. Prevent more impact.

Except for that little detail called 'stopping'...

As a trained Wx spotter, your best bet for survival is to get off at the nearest exit. You could hide under an overpass, but you will probably get hit. I travel with both CB and Ham radio, so I usually know where the hail is to avoid it. But not always. Even if you have to park under a tree (leaning away), the branches will somewhat (very little), slow the falling ice. By the time you find a car wash to duck into, the storm will be over.

What a ridiculous thing to say. Raising shields doesn't divert power from your photon torpedos, it diverts power from your phasers!

...of my house. (However, my wife is the neck that turns the head.)

What was he thinking? Everyone knows that!

hold on a minute is not making your wife mad consider already a HAIL STORM? I prefer the natural one over the artificial one. At list you can said that you did not ask for it...lol

As a retired meteorologist for the National Weather Service, I'd advise seeking shelter under an overpass if it's available nearby. If on a street try to pull into a garage or parking lot which has coverage.

If none of these are available, pull over & read your automobile insurance coverage!

Fred

As to stopping under overpass... make sure your hazard lights are blinking. You don't want another driver with your idea for shelter in low visibility to rear end your vehicle.

You stop the car

Everyone takes off all their clothes

Everyone gets out and does a rain dance until the hail storm ends

I think you have misremembered the laws of conservation of energy and the conservation of momentum.

Buy one of these before the hail storm. Anyone tried it? Like a giant balloon that envelopes your vehicle.

http://www.hailprotector.com/

That's taking preparedness up a notch!

Remember to exit the vehicle and to turn the ignition off too....

I misremembered? No, I got it. Mythbusters confused me.

Yes, the wife is always right, just ask her.

...Just agree with her. Saves a lot of time and trouble.