Residents of Hamilton Pool Road in Austin were in for a surprise when a hailstorm struck their neighborhood, pelting homes with a considerable amount of icy precipitation. Witnesses described the scene as if the snow had suddenly blanketed the area, though it was a barrage of pea- and dime-sized hailstones that coated the ground.

Resident Matt Palmer, who returned home to find his yard under a layer of hail, was told by his food delivery driver that the weather was delaying his order—the driver expressed concern for potential car damage due to the intensity of the hail, according to KXAN. In a similar account, neighbor Robert Jacob Lerma heard a commotion on his roof and scrambled to shelter his car from the deluge, though fortunately, he reported no damage to his property, despite the aggressive weather.

The sudden hail invasion occurred during a severe thunderstorm that hit western Travis County, sending residents of Bee Cave and Hamilton Pool into a mild frenzy as they witnessed what looked like snow according to KVUE. Amidst backyard hailstorms and slushy conditions, locals captured the unusual conditions on camera, sharing images online of the icy dispersion that briefly transformed the landscape.

The summer-like phenomenon of graupel, sometimes dubbed "soft hail", also made an appearance with supercooled water droplets freezing upon ice or snowflakes and softly descending during the storm, "The guy that called me when he was delivering food, he said he was worried about his car being damaged, so it must have been coming down pretty hard and my wife called me to see if I was ok," Palmer recounted in the statement he provided to KXAN. As the storm system moved through, the Texas Department of Transportation cautioned drivers caught in the hail to slow down, find safety promptly, and avoid other vehicles by advising them on Twitter with a snapshot of the pellet-sized ice that bombarded the area.

While the conditions were certainly unusual, they were also ephemeral; with surface temperatures lingering in the 50s, the ice was not expected to last long. The KVUE Storm Team continues to monitor the sky for additional severe weather threats and urges residents to maintain vigilance by staying tuned for further updates across various platforms.