Of golf balls and half dollars

Listening this morning to National Weather Service reports of the "derecho" storms headed for the place in Maryland where I live, the voice called out the probable size of the hail stones that would accompany the storm. These ranged from "golf ball" to "half dollar" to "one inch in diameter" to "the size of a quarter." -- all in the space of about 15 minutes.

So who's out there measuring this stuff? One imagines some pathetic, rain-soaked observer standing in the midst of it all like those characters on the weather channel, calling in to Sam the NWS announcer: "Sam. They're coming down the size of golf balls -- no wait a minute, more like half dollars." Followed minutes later by "Sam, cancel golf balls and half-dollars, now they're one inch in diameter. No, hold it, more like the size of a quarter."

How exact is this science? Is the observer actually measuring this stuff or just guessing? What's the difference between the size of a golf ball and the size of a half-dollar. As a matter of fact, who has seen a half-dollar lately? I haven't seen one in years. But, come to think of it, does the half-dollar hailstone come flat like a coin rather than round like a golf ball. Flat hail. That would be a news story.

I sympathize with the observer. Back in my day as a young newspaperman, we would assign sizes to hail stones. If people were seeing hail stones the size of baseballs or softballs we might send out a photographer. Anything smaller would probably melt before a photographer or reporter could get to the scene. There were no photo phones or other of the marvelous technologies that exist today. It was very long ago, back when half-dollar coins were still in wide circulation.