Several rounds of severe weather rolled through the St. Louis Metro April 28, 2012, with numerous reports of large hail. The first severe thunderstorm moved into western St. Charles County shortly after 2:30pm, dropping golf ball sized hail near Wentzville, MO. This storm continued east, into St. Charles around 3:15pm with 1.0-1.5″ diameter hail, then into Florissant, Bridgeton and Hazelwood area around 3:25pm with quarter sized to more golf ball sized hail. St. Louis-Lambert International Airport reported quarter sized (1.0″ diameter) hail at approximately 3:27pm. This initial storm then moved over northern suburbs of St. Louis City and crossed over to Granite City, IL at 3:40pm. While severe winds were not reported, gusts up to 50 mph did occur with the thunderstorm as it moved through the metro and unfortunately caused many injuries in St. Louis.
A second severe thunderstorm took a similar path into the St. Louis Metro a couple of hours later, dropping baseball sized hail in Wentzville shortly before 5:30pm. Both O’Fallon and St. Charles had reports of baseball sized hail at 5:48pm and 5:59pm respectively as the storm continued east-southeast. It was shortly after this that doppler radar began to indicate low-level rotation with this storm and a tornado warning was issued for areas of St. Louis County and St. Louis City. While a tornado warning was in effect, reports continued to come in of large hail with golf ball sized hail reported in Maryland Heights, Creve Coeur and St. Ann. The storm moved into St. Louis City at 6:15pm with continued reports of golf ball to baseball sized hail, including a 3″ diameter hail report near the Edward Jones Dome. Reports of hail continued to come in across St. Louis City for nearly 15 minutes before the storm finally moved across the river shortly after 6:30pm. No Tornado was ever reported with this storm. Additional thunderstorms overnight produced heavy rains and additional hail reports under 1-inch to go along with gusty winds near 45 mph.
You can view many of the large hail reports from across the area in the map below:
Large Hail Reports – St. Louis April 28, 2012