Colorado Researchers Seeking Hail Reports Via Social Media

By Chris Spears

DENVER (CBS4) - If you're active on social media and enjoy following Colorado's severe weather then you can help researchers with an important hail study this spring and summer.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is teaming up with Bernard Meier, lead forecaster of the National Weather Service Office in Boulder, to collect information about hail via Facebook and Twitter.

"The goal of the crowdsourced study is to help researchers better understand and forecast hail-producing thunderstorms in Colorado and nationwide," said Associate Professor Katja Friedrich.

"Thunderstorms occasionally produce swaths of massive amounts of hail in Colorado. Such events sometimes are referred to as "plowable hailstorms" because some roads remain impassible until snowplows or bulldozers are used to clear them," said Friedrich.

"These severe storms pose a substantial risk to life and property and often result in motor vehicle accidents, road closures, airport delays, river flooding and water rescue activity," she said. "Over the course of a summer, millions of people are affected by these kind of thunderstorms."

According to Meier, the pilot project is to better understand why certain thunderstorms produce massive amounts of hail and how meteorologists can identify them. "We need to know when these thunderstorms occur, how much hail is on the ground and the extent of the hail swath," he said.

If you aren't active on social media the Deep Hail Project also welcomes reports via email.

For more information on what to collect and how to report it click here.

Meteorologist Chris Spears writes about stories related to weather and climate in Colorado. Check out his bio, connect with him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @ChrisCBS4.