On This Date: America's Costliest Hailstorm And A Record String Of Arizona Tornadoes Jonathan ErdmanOctober 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM 0 Severe weather outbreaks aren't just for the Plains, South or Midwest. From Oct.
- - On This Date: America's Costliest Hailstorm And A Record String Of Arizona Tornadoes
Jonathan ErdmanOctober 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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Severe weather outbreaks aren't just for the Plains, South or Midwest.
From Oct. 5-6, 2010, 15 years ago, Arizona endured a bizarrely busy round of damaging severe thunderstorms including huge hail and tornadoes.
It started with a parade of supercell thunderstorms in the Phoenix metro area on Oct. 5.
Along with wind gusts up to 75 mph, these supercells dumped hail up to 3 inches in diameter — larger than tennis balls — over Chandler, Scottsdale and other parts of the Phoenix valley.
Thousands of vehicles, roofs and skylights were damaged by the hail. Dozens of planes were damaged at the Scottsdale Airport. One person was injured at Alhambra High School's practice field when the hailstorm struck.
The damage toll from the hailstorm of $2.8 billion was and still is America's costliest hailstorm.
The next morning, a string of at least 11 tornadoes tore through parts of northern Arizona, the largest outbreak on record for the Grand Canyon State.
Two of those twisters — rated EF2 and EF3 — tracked near or over the town of Bellemont within 90 minutes of each other that morning, each narrowly missing the National Weather Service office near Flagstaff. The Bellemont EF3 tornado was on the ground for 30 miles.
Over 100 homes were damaged in Bellemont, with 21 left uninhabitable. Twenty-eight train cars derailed and at least 30 RVs from a dealership were destroyed and tossed onto Interstate 40, closing the freeway for several hours.
Nobody was killed by the tornadoes, but seven minor injuries were reported in Bellemont.
Bellemont, Arizona, tornado damage October 2010
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Source: "AOL General News"
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