Hail
Also called hail icon, hail shower, hailstorm
Forecast icon on a weather app or a public forecast table.
Forecast weather symbolsHail meaning
Hail, as a forecast icon, means balls or lumps of ice are expected, usually from a convective cloud. It is not snow and not sleet.
At a glance
- System
- Forecast icon, with a station-plot note
- Used for
- Expected hail
- Not the same as
- Snow, sleet, or a thunder icon that never says hail
A forecast icon for hail. Not snow, and not sleet.
The name. Hail is ice from a convective cloud. WWIS, the Met Office, and MetService each keep it off the snow row.
Where it comes from
WWIS lists hail on its own. The Met Office prints hail and hail showers, day and night, apart from snow and from sleet. MetService describes hail as balls or irregular lumps of ice, usually from cumuliform cloud. That is MetService’s sentence for its icons. A station plot can report hail as present weather. The plot’s glyph is an observing sign. This page does not claim to reproduce code 4677.
The line drawing is original to this cabinet. It is not an agency logo, a vendor icon, or the emoji for the same idea.
Weather
What it means
Ice is expected to fall from a shower or storm cloud, not as a gentle crystal fall. Hail showers are the showery form on the Met Office guide. A thunderstorm icon may include hail in the story of the storm. If the service has printed hail, it has chosen the hail icon on purpose.
Variants
Hail showers
Met Office day and night hail-shower icons. The ice can be brief. Hail without the shower wording is the other icon.
Worth knowing
- MetService describes hail as balls or irregular lumps of ice, usually from cumuliform clouds. Source
Questions
What does a hail icon mean?
Hail is expected. MetService describes it as balls or irregular lumps of ice from convective cloud. WWIS and the Met Office give it icons apart from snow.
Is hail the same as sleet?
No. Both involve ice, and the tables still list them separately. Sleet’s wording also shifts between publishers. Hail’s convective story is the stabler one.
Near this
- ThunderstormA forecast icon for thunder and lightning. Not a decorative bolt, and not ordinary rain.
- SleetA forecast icon publishers label sleet. Not snow, not freezing rain, and not one universal mixture.
- SnowA forecast icon for expected snow. Not a snow shower, not sleet, and not a snowman.
- Rain showerA forecast icon for rain that starts and ends. Not steady rain, and not a thunderstorm.
Sources
- World Weather Information Service, weather icons
- WWIS weather icon table
- Met Office, what does this forecast mean
- MetService, our weather icons
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
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symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 18 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.