Hail Research
This 1973 film provides an overview of the National Hail Research Project (NHRE), a collaborative multi-year field project conducted in the area of the Great Plains known as "Hail Alley." The film contains commentary from William C. Swinbank, Director of the NHRE, and Clifton C. Lovell, statistician with the NHRE. Credits: Produced in cooperation with NCAR. Presented by the National Science Foundation, Directorate for Research Applications. Produced by Audio Productions. (Color, sound.)
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Help for Hail Alley
- Film Transcript (43.97 KB)
1969 Hail Research Brochure. This 1969 brochure details the significance of hail research, particularly for farmers, and highlights several hail research endeavors at the time, including the Joint Hail Research Project. Hail can be catastrophic for crops and can also cause expensive property damage. NCAR participated in this project which studied hail formation as well as a hail suppression technique in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado.
Hail Brochure
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National Hail Research Experiment (NHRE) Digital Collection
Description
Browse more records related to NHRE here. This collection of records from the experiment includes newsletters and daily radio reports. These were produced in order to create transparency with the local community--particularly the farmers--around Grover, Colorado so that they would be aware of the project activities which included operating large radar facilities as well as regular aircraft flights in the area.
Hail Research Gallery
NCAR scientist Charles Knight slicing the Coffeyville hailstone with a band saw in the Mesa Lab cold room. The Coffeyville hailstone measured 5.5 inches in diameter and was considered the largest hailstone ever collected at the time.
NCAR scientist Nancy Knight prepares a cooler of dry ice in which to store hailstones, summer 1975. Knight collected hailstones during the National Hail Research Experiment in order to compare data collected by NCAR’s CP-2 radar with actual hail produced during summer storms.
This is a slice of the Coffeyville hailstone, which was the heaviest hailstone (1.67 pounds) on record at the time it was collected in 1970. It was sliced and photographed under polarized light so that scientists could study its growth layers.