[kstrauser]

That's not true about hailstones. It wasn't common to have golf-ball sized hailstones, but neither was it rare. I'd say it happened once a decade or so. They were sometimes much, much larger. I have photographs of me holding one about the size of a baseball.

I'd roll my eyes at the idea of "chemical leaking" (while at the same time not exactly wanting to grind one up and sprinkle it on pizza). It's absolutely the case that places in the middle of the country that get thunderstorms and tornadoes also sometimes get ginormous hailstones, the kind that can literally kill you if you're caught outside unprotected.