Storm Chasers on the Hail Trail

Storm Chasers on the Hail Trail

This spring, storm-chasing scientists will scatter across more than a dozen states to hunt for hail. The falling ice does more than crush newly planted pansies: It pockmarks cars, shreds roofs, cracks solar panels, and crushes agricultural crops, which caused some $35 billion in damages last year in the United States. But predicting where and when these severe storms will land has proven a challenge, and large-scale field study of hailstorms has…