This becomes a layer of clear ice when it does freeze. When a hailstone falls through air with a smaller amount of liquid, the liquid freezes on contact with the hailstone, forming small air bubbles in the opaque layers. The more supercooled water a hailstone makes contact with, the larger and heavier the stone is likely to become. When the hailstone becomes so heavy that the updraft can no longer support it, it falls from the sky. Hail falls along paths scientists call hail swaths.
Swaths can leave hail piled so deep it has to be removed with a snow plow.
Hail also does a great deal of damage to crops. U.S. costs run into hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Farmers cope with the hail hazard by purchasing insurance. Parts of this region average between seven and nine hail days a year. Corn crop damage caused by hail.