Spring and Summer Storms Keep Auto Body & Repair Shops Jumping, from CrossCheck.
Spring and summer are peak times for severe weather and storm damage to cars. The state of Florida experiences the most thunderstorms per year on average, and the southeastern US and southern plains also get a lot of storms in a given year.
But a severe thunderstorm can happen anywhere, as auto body shops that have been in business for a while can attest.
The biggest hailstone recovered in the US was in Nebraska in 2003 and was 7 inches wide. For comparison the standard softball used in slow-pitch is about half as big. Though nobody weighed the Nebraska hailstone, a hailstone in Kansas in 1970 had a 5.7-inch diameter and weighed a whopping 1.67 pounds. And large hailstones can fall at speeds greater than 100 mph: ouch!
Hail damage alone can do a number on a car’s appearance, even if hailstones aren’t that big.