Why are hailstones always round?

Question

Why are hailstones always round?

Answer 1

They aren't always round, especially as they get real large.  The smaller ones are typically round because they start off by the freezing of a small round water drop, then more and more water evenly coats the small ice ball and freezes, making it larger and larger, until it becomes too heavy and falls out of the storm.

Once hailstones start getting real large, they tend to get rather spiky shaped, especially if smaller stones happen to contact and stick to the larger stone.

Answer 2

Hailstones are not necessarily round, the are often spherical shaped though. During a thunderstorm, the droplets of water freeze as they are lifted to colder air from the updraft of the thunderstorm. The droplet will begin to fall and then lifted again creating another layer of ice around the droplet. This happens many of times until the stone is too heavy for the updraft to lift, then it falls as hail. (This is what creates the rings seen if you cut open a hail stone and the spherical shape that is most often seen). But hail can come in many shapes, sometimes they are pointy, oblong, or spiky.

Here's a link to the largest hailstone ever found in the US, a piece actually broke off of it before it was found so it was even bigger before!

http://www.tornadochaser.com/photo/coffe...