The Fourth went out loud — 198 reports, three-inch hail in Connecticut, gusts up and down the seaboard. The 5th slept it off. Just 64 reports nationwide, most of them wind, and nothing anywhere bigger than an inch and three-quarters — the quietest day in a week, and after that stretch, a welcome one.
What ran the day was scattered wind, not organized weather. Texas logged the most of anyone — 25 reports, mostly gusts down the Panhandle and West Texas — and the hardest single blow was a 77 mph gust way off east at Poland, Ohio. Nothing about it was a line or a system; just heat-of-the-day storms popping up, knocking down a few limbs, and falling apart by dark.
The little hail there was landed in two far-apart pockets, both topping out at 1.75 inches. One sat in the Texas Panhandle around Dougherty; the other was up in central Montana at Surprise Creek Colony, with North Dakota catching a little more around Belfield. An inch and three-quarters isn't a headline stone, but it's past the cosmetic line — that's the size that starts bruising shingles and shaking granules loose, even on a slow day.
And that's the catch with a quiet day: it doesn't make the news, so nobody thinks to look. If you're out around Dougherty or in that stretch of central Montana, the storm that crossed you barely registered nationally — but a 1.75-inch stone doesn't hit any softer because the rest of the country had a calm afternoon. This is the kind of day a roof takes a quiet bruise and nobody files a thing until a leak turns up in October. If it hailed on you, it's worth ten minutes and a ladder — or a call to somebody who'll climb it for you.
For the crews, there's not much to chase here — a slow day is a slow day. The Texas Panhandle and that lone Montana pocket are about the only fresh, provable hail on the board, and both are thin. The season's real tally of where the big ice keeps falling stays on the Top States for Hail board. Everybody else — the state-by-state list is short today, but it's below; find your town and see whether the 5th left anything worth a second look.