In our recap of the first outbreak of the 2015 severe weather season (available here), we joined the traditional TV news media and encouraged our readers to send us pics of hail. Out of all the submissions, this was my favorite:
Well, it looks like we have a little Jimmy's Egg on our face. It turns out, that sonuvabitch Landry Logan tricked us and that hail is as fake as an Abigail Ogle Twitter follower. He simply grabbed some ice cubes out of his freezer and pretended they were hail! What a yardbird punk!
I know about Landry's trickery thanks to this blog post by KOCO Chief Meteorologist Damon Lane. He literally wrote a post about how to spot fake hail, because you know, nothing's more frustrating than buying a couple of pounds of hail at the flea market, only to come home and learn it's counterfeit.
Via KOCO:
Is this hail real? Or Fake?Fake hail is easy to spot.
What some people will do for a little bit of attention. I know this blog won't end the need to send us silly..fake...hail pictures.
But hopefully it will help you know how to spot a fake. If all this blog does is stop 1 person from sharing/retweeting a fake hail picture...then I'll be happy.
At this point, Damon proceeds to post some pics of fake hail.
They look so real! I can't believe they're fake! Fortunatly, Damon let us know how to spot fake hail photos:
So how can you tell if the hail picture you're looking at is indeed legit? Hail stones come in all shapes and sizes. But the most important thing to look at is how smooth is the hail? Sometimes hail is smooth. But it won't ever be as smooth as the fake ones above.
Hail stones will break and chip as they fall.
And, they are hardly ever perfect circles.
Also...look for dirt and grass to be stuck in the hail. You will usually find those in hail stones..especially big ones.
Cool, we got it. We'll never be fooled by fake hail again! That's awesome. Maybe next week he can write a post about how to not be fooled by fake tornados. David Payne would like that.
