Video shows a hailstorm in Tennessee dropping pellets of ice about the size of a marble across a Church Hill neighborhood on Thursday.
The National Weather Service had forecast severe storms with the possibility of hail for Middle Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau in the eastern part of the state on May 19. Church Hill is in the northeast corner of the state, near the Virginia border.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, hailstones are formed when thunderstorm updrafts lift raindrops high up into colder atmosphere, where they freeze. The frozen stones grow by collecting and freezing more raindrops. When the hailstones become too heavy to be held aloft by the storms updraft, they fall to the ground.
Depending on how quickly the water freezes around a hailstone, it can appear cloudy white due to trapped air bubbles.
