We get asked constantly whether hail is really as common in St. Louis as people say, and which parts of the metro actually take the worst of it. Instead of guessing, we pulled the real numbers from NOAA's Storm Events Database and ranked the counties ourselves. No estimates, no rounding up for effect. Here is what the data actually shows.
Methodology. Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, details files, EVENT_TYPE=Hail, Missouri and Illinois. Pulled July 2026. Metric: total count of NOAA-logged hail reports per county, summed across 2020 through 2025, ranked highest to lowest. A single storm system commonly produces multiple reports across nearby zones within the same county, so the event count reflects reporting density, not a count of distinct storms. Max hail size is the largest single reported diameter, in inches, recorded for that county in the same window. Illinois counties in the metro (Madison, St. Clair) are reported separately from Missouri's Franklin and Jefferson counties, which also have same-named counties elsewhere in Illinois that are excluded from this ranking.
| Rank | County | Hail Reports, 2020 to 2025 | Largest Hailstone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St. Louis County, MO | 125 | 2.5 in |
| 2 | St. Charles County, MO | 54 | 3.0 in |
| 3 | Jefferson County, MO | 44 | 2.75 in |
| 4 | Madison County, IL | 35 | 3.75 in |
| 5 | St. Clair County, IL | 32 | 2.5 in |
| 6 | Franklin County, MO | 30 | 3.0 in |
| 7 | St. Louis City, MO | 0 | No reports on file |
St. Louis County Leads by a Wide Margin
St. Louis County logged 125 hail reports from 2020 through 2025, more than double the next county on the list. A large share of that count sits in 2025 alone, which was a heavy reporting year across the whole metro. That does not mean every part of the county saw damage every year, but it does mean the county as a whole had the most hail activity on record of anywhere we track.
The Biggest Hailstone Wasn't Where You'd Expect
The single largest hailstone recorded anywhere in this data set did not fall in St. Louis County, it fell in Madison County, Illinois, at 3.75 inches in March 2024. Event count and maximum stone size are two different measures, and they do not always point to the same place. A county can have fewer total reports and still take the hardest single hit.
St. Louis City Shows Zero Reports, and That's Worth Explaining
St. Louis City does not appear with any hail reports in this NOAA data set for 2020 through 2025. That is not a typo and it is not us leaving the city off the list. Hail reporting depends on where a trained spotter, a member of the public, or an automated station happens to be when hail falls, and dense urban cores are sometimes under-reported relative to the surrounding county even when hail did occur nearby. We are showing the real number on file, which is zero, rather than guessing at what "probably" happened.
What This Means If You Own a Roof in Any of These Counties
Hail damage does not always announce itself. A roof can take a real hit and look fine from the driveway. The counties at the top of this list have simply had more opportunities for that to happen over the last six years. If your home sits in St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, or St. Clair county, and it has been a while since anyone looked at your roof from up close, it is worth having it checked, storm or no storm.
Want Your Roof Checked Against the Real Data?
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Kaleb
Kaleb owns and runs Keys Roofing, serving the greater St. Louis area with roofing, gutter, and downspout work. The company is fully licensed and insured, and Kaleb is on job sites personally, inspecting, documenting, and standing behind the crew's work.