A veteran Oklahoma storm chaser picked up a piece of hail during a thunderstorm earlier this week in the Texas panhandle that could be a state record.
Val Castor with the Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV-TV was chasing a storm near Vigo Park, Texas, Sunday when he made a shocking discovery.
Castor posted a “spiked” hailstone that was larger than his hand on his Facebook account.
The post went viral:
The image of the hailstone caught the attention of the National Weather Service’s Lubbock office, which replied, “Hi Val. Just wanting to verify if that is a 16 oz monster drink?”
For good measure, the storm chaser shared numerous other images to show his followers — and the Lubbock NWS office — exactly what he had stumbled across.
The hailstone was so large that another person noted, “Everything’s bigger in Texas, including hail.”
Castor also posted another image of him holding a pineapple to demonstrate just how large the monster of hailstone was:
He estimated his find was at a minimum of seven inches in length.
The Washington Post reported the Texas state record for a hailstone was set on April 28, 2021, near San Antonio. It measured 6.4 inches.
Later in the day Sunday, Castor did find a tornado in the Texas Panhandle near the town of Silverton — just about 20 miles from Vigo Park.
No injuries or deaths were reported from the twister.
Val and his wife Amy Castor made headlines last month when they flipped their vehicle over live on the air while chasing a storm on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma.
Both were uninjured in the rollover crash, Val’s brother, Von Castor – a storm chaser for KOTV in Tulsa – shared on social media.
