Hail
gave a section of Perry County a real pounding on July 14, 1854. The storm
passed from northwest to southeast and dropped chunks of ice weighing anywhere
from an ounce to three-fourths of a pound. One chunk measured 8 inches around.
Birds and animals, including calves, chickens, dogs, geese, lambs and pigs, were
killed in rather large numbers. Fruit was stripped from trees, forest trees had
their leaves and twigs knocked off and fields of wheat and corn were destroyed.
Hailstorms plagued northern Ohio on July 11 of 1900 ahead of a cold front.
Temperatures that day at most stations were in the mid 80s to low 90s, but next
day most stations reported highs in the upper 70s to mid 80s.
Ashland, Lorain, Portage, Sandusky, Seneca and Summit counties reported damage
from hail on that date. At Akron (Summit County), a professor Egbert noted that
between 15 and 22 large, egg-shaped hailstones fell on each square foot of
ground. The largest stone he saw was 1.5 inches long and 4.5 inches in
circumference. One stone at Wellington (Lorain County) weighed in at 9 ounces.
At Elyria, a Mr. C.W. Goodspeed measured "four or five of the average
stones". He found the largest stone which was 2.75 inches in diameter,
weighed 4 ounces and was "almost solid ice." Some hailstones in Elyria
measured up to 10 inches in circumference and were half buried in the ground.
The storm lasted about 15 minutes.
Despite high temperatures of only 60 to 75 degrees throughout the Buckeye State on July 22, 1947, there were some very severe storms. The most severe storm in Ohio for that date occurred in the Cleveland area.
A hailstorm dumped a large quantity of hail on the eastern suburbs of Cleveland (Cuyahoga County). In the village of Pepper Pike, cars became stalled in drifts of hail up to 1.5 feet deep. According to the Dover Reporter, "Children spent the afternoon pelting each other with 'hailballs'."
July of 1947 also saw some extremely heavy rainfall. At Circleville (Pickaway County), 5.28 inches of rain fell on the 14th with about 5 inches of that coming in two hours. Philo (Muskingum County) had a cloud burst of 1.15 inches of rain in just 12 minutes.
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