Honkin' big hailstone

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

I just returned from the laboratory of Dr. Charles Knight at the National Centers for Atmospheric Research here in Boulder, CO where I shot this picture of of myself holding a giant hailstone that fell in Coffeeville, KA (where the Dalton gang robbed their last bank) in 1970. This Hailstone held the record as the largest in N. America for 36 years.

The second photo was taken in Dr. Knight's walk in cooler and shows him unwrapping the actual hailstone that holds the current record from Vivian, SD (July 2010).

See the the video of this in the roof course when it comes out.

[Doug Edwards]

How does one go about getting a job babysitting old hail stones? I am interested.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

So where is the hailstone winner for 2007-2010?

Oh, and what was the price tag to preserve a hail stone for 40 years?

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

Dr. Knight has been researching hail for a long time. So... you get that job by paying your dues. He doesn't really keep the record stones long. He makes castings of them and sometimes he cuts them into layers to study the strata.

I'm holding a casting made from the original Coffeeville hailstone, which is long gone as far as I know. The new record holder is the one Dr. Knight is taking out of the bag. 1 lb, 15 oz, 8" in diameter. It fell in July, 2010. He'd made several molds of it, but the original finder in Vivian SD wants it back when he's finished. Before that the record was held by a stone that fell in Aurora NE in 2006. We shot a casting of it in the summer of '09 and thought we were through. Then the Vivian stone fell and we had to re-shoot. Before that it was the Coffeeville stone.

Very long project. Research and writing for the roof videos began ind Dec., 2008. I've got 600 voiceovers recorded, about 400 studio scenes with about the same number yet to shoot, and then there's the locations scenes already shot... maybe 300.

[Nick Gromicko]

Very long project. Research and writing for the roof videos began ind Dec., 2008. I've got 600 voiceovers recorded, about 400 studio scenes with about the same number yet to shoot, and then there's the locations scenes already shot... maybe 300.

Worth the wait. www.NACHI.TV gets better every day.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Amazing Kenton and Nick the amount of research you guys do.
Very educational.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Crazy! Talk about killer stones! Great work Kenton.