18-06-2025
CU's storm chasers are studying hailstorms
University of Colorado Boulder's Eric Frew is eager to get a drone in the air. It's June in the Plains, and that means hailstorm season.
Why it matters: Hail causes billions of dollars in damage every year and leads to higher insurance rates nationwide. Yet, we know little about how it forms, says Frew.
What he's saying: "We need better scientific understanding to make better forecast models, to build better homes, and all the things that you can do with a better understanding of this," he tells us hours before he leaves for western Nebraska.
State of play: Frew and his small team of students are part of the largest hail study in decades, dubbed ICECHIP.
It involves roughly 70 private and public researchers, and includes scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder.
Zoom in: The CU team is spending six weeks through the end of June looking for storm clouds on the Front Range and across the Great Plains.
Frew — the director of the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing — is tasked with using a drone to map the hailstorm damage from above.
"Our team is actually going right behind the storm to try to image … the full extent of where it fell. And you need all of that information together to really understand what's going on with this hail," he says.
The intrigue: The drone they are using is the inspiration for the one featured in the blockbuster movie "Twisters."
"I want to stress they got the design from us, not the other way around," Frew says with a laugh.
Yes, but: No tornado chasing for this team. Frew says hail can cause more damage and is often hard to detect. "It's not quite as crazy as what the movies look like," he allows. "Although … I worry more about the damage hail can do than a tornado, because you can see the tornado a little bit more easily."
