After a run of days where the story was wind and the hail barely cleared an inch, the 19th finally put some real ice on the ground. A North Dakota setup dropped a 2-inch stone at Dawson, east of Bismarck — the biggest hail logged anywhere in over a week.
The two Dakotas split the day almost down the middle, a dozen reports each, but along different lines. North Dakota was the hail half — nine stones clustered around Dawson and up toward the Jamestown country. South Dakota was the wind half, a run of gusts that peaked at a stout 87 mph near Herreid, right up by the border.
Two-inch hail is where a roof quits arguing. An inch of ice bruises and rattles granules loose; two inches cracks the shingle mat outright, dents soft metal, and splits older comp that was already brittle. That's not a cosmetic ding you debate with an adjuster — it's a roof that took real structural damage, even if it still sheds water for now.
The trap with a stone that size is that it doesn't punch holes you can see from the yard. It leaves soft bruises and shears the granule coating off in patches, and the fastest place to catch it isn't the roof at all — it's the gutters. If you're anywhere the Dawson cell tracked and you find a slurry of black granules piled in the downspout splash, that's your roof telling you it got hit. Get somebody up there before the next rain rinses the evidence into the yard.
For crews, this is the cleanest hail work the board has offered in a while: the Dawson–Jamestown corridor in central North Dakota is concentrated enough to canvass properly, and the Herreid wind up in northern South Dakota is a separate line worth a look. Where the season's biggest stones keep landing stays on the Top States for Hail board. The state-by-state table is below — scan it for your county and see if the 19th left anything on your roof.