By Yujia Huang , ScienceNews.  Excerpt: On April 28, a fierce hailstorm battered Springfield, Mo., dropping ice chunks the size of baseballs, with some even larger than grapefruits. The giant hail smashed cars, wrecked homes and injured both people and animals. This type of destructive hail is making headlines more frequently. In a warming world, ice falling from the sky might seem more likely to melt away. But hailstones may instead grow larger and more destructive in many parts of the world , though the risks will vary by region, researchers report May 27 in Nature ....  Full article at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/large-hail-climate-change-more-common . 

By Jake Bittle , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance is now one of the most prominent symptoms of the climate crisis in the US. Major carriers such as State Farm and Allstate have  pulled back from offering fire insurance in California ... and dozens of small insurance companies have collapsed or fled from  Florida  and  Louisiana  following recent large hurricanes. The problem is fast becoming a crisis that stretches far beyond the nation’s coastal states. ... insurers have raised premiums higher than ever  and dropped customers even in inland states such as Iowa. ...so-called “severe-convective storms” are large and powerful thunderstorms that form and disappear within a few hours or days, often spinning off hailstorms and tornadoes as they shoot across the flat expanses of the central United States. The insurance industry refers to these storms as “secondary perils” – the other term of art is  “kitty cats” , ...smal...

https://eos.org/science-updates/how-hail-hazards-are-changing-around-the-mediterranean By Sante Laviola ,   Giulio Monte ,   Elsa Cattani  and   Vincenzo Levizzani , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new method for studying hailstorms from space offers more consistent and more complete views of how and where hail forms, and how climate change might influence hail’s impacts in the future. The Mediterranean Basin is one of the most vulnerable areas on Earth to the effects of rapid climate change. Observed rates of temperature rise indicate that the region is  warming 20% faster  compared with the global average, inducing a trend toward drier conditions and changing precipitation regimes. The steep temperature rise increases the vulnerability of the Mediterranean Basin to several hazards that affect ecosystems and human health and security, such as heat waves, droughts, and fires. Along with such events, the frequency and intensity of storm-relate...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/science/hail-weather-climate.html By Oliver Whang , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...the hailstone Mr. Scott collected in 2010, ... measured eight inches across and weighed nearly two pounds, .... ...scientists from Western University in London, Ontario, collected a giant hailstone ...measured five inches across and weighed a little more than half a pound.... ...records set in the past couple of years, including Alabama’s  in 2018  (5.38 inches long, 0.612 pounds), Colorado’s  in 2019  (4.83 inches, 0.53 pounds) and Africa’s  in 2020  (around seven inches long, weight unknown). Australia set a national record in 2020, then  set it again  in 2021. Texas’ record was set  in 2021 . In 2018, a storm in Argentina produced stones so big that a new class of hail was introduced:  gargantuan . Larger than a honeydew melon. ...the record-setting has come with increased hail damage. Although the frequency of ...