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Increased hailstorms in cities through cell merger mechanism across North America and East Asia
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Increased hailstorms in cities through cell merger mechanism across North America and East Asia
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Journal Article
Increased hailstorms in cities through cell merger mechanism across North America and East Asia
2026
Overview
Hailstorms rank among the most destructive extreme weather events globally, causing substantial property damage. While limited case studies suggest that cities may exacerbate hailstorms, the underlying mechanisms remain uncertain because of the complex physical processes. Here, we examine a hailstorm formation pathway associated with convective merging process using long-term observational data and high-resolution numerical simulations. This pathway helps explain the rising frequency of hailstorms across two distinct climate regimes, North America and East Asia. We find that merger hailstorms (MHs) occur approximately twice as often and tend to be more intense than non-merging normal hailstorms (NHs), which have been traditionally considered as the primary hailstorm formation mode. Favorable environmental conditions support the initiation of multiple convective cells and their subsequent merging, a tendency that may be enhanced by anthropogenic heat in large cities. Projections from a machine-learning model indicate an increase in the MH frequency and a decrease in NH frequency in North America. Together, these findings highlight an underexplored hailstorm formation pathway and suggest that climate change and human activities may play a role in shaping future hailstorm characteristics and the associated risks.
This study reveals a merger-type hailstorm formation pathway that is twice as frequent and more intense than traditional hailstorms and is projected to increase in North American cities, potentially amplified by anthropogenic influence.
