Usually large hail falls in South Florida: Why is it unusual?

Unusually large hail was reported over portions of Miami-Dade County on Monday.

On Monday afternoon strong to severe thunderstorms affected portions of South Florida, bringing strong wind and large hail to various residential areas. At around 6:50 PM EDT, Weather & Radar meteorologist caught this scene in Kendall, Florida. The hail was around 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter, or about the size of a quarter, or slightly bigger, ping pong ball, respectively. Hail of this size is not very common in South Florida. Most hail reports in this region are for stones of 0.75 inches in diameter (penny-sized) or smaller.

Hail tends to be small because the atmospheric layers tend to stay warmer, allowing the chunks of ice to melt rapidly into smaller pieces as they fall from the sky.

Monday's weather will be similar to Sunday with slightly higher rain chances and a few severe storms possible into the early afternoon hours. Tuesday will be drier and cooler, but by Wednesday, humidity, temperatures, and rain chances all start going back up ahead of Friday’s cold front.