Workers in Phoenix’s Metrocenter area walked outside after a storm to find shattered car windows and dented metal. Nearly every car in one parking lot was damaged, according to FOX 10’s on-scene report. One car had holes from the hail.
The storm hit on Oct. 21, 2026, battering the area around Peoria and 31st Avenues. A tree had been uprooted in the parking lot, where piles of hail remained for hours.
One worker watched the storm from the fourth floor of her workplace, describing hail, wind, and a view outside that was “just black.” When she got a closer look at her car, she found more damage than she expected. “A nightmare. My poor baby is demolished. I’m hoping insurance will take care of this,” she said.
Tow-truck crews faced a long cleanup. One driver told the reporter that every driver in the area had been asked to work through the night because there were so many damaged cars to remove.
At the Stores
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Inside a nearby Big 5 store, customers helped employees hold the doors shut while wind pulled at them and ice struck the doors. “It was hard to even keep the doors closed, even with a few of us doing it,” an employee said during his interview.
Once the storm passed, people went outside to inspect their cars. The employee described a caved-in rear window that left a car filled with glass and ice, along with broken taillights and mirrors on other cars. People worked together to figure out what to do next, which he described as “a bonding moment at the end.”
Branches and leaves covered nearby streets. A large branch also ripped letters off a dd’s DISCOUNTS sign, leaving broken plastic on the ground.
Around the Neighborhood
Preliminary NWS Phoenix reports document large hail nearby that afternoon. At 3:32 p.m. MST, a trained spotter estimated 1.5-inch hail four miles northeast of Glendale. A public report listed hail at another location four miles northeast of Glendale at 3:34 p.m., citing a photograph with the largest stones estimated at 2 inches across.
Near 35th Avenue and Dunlap, a Reddit poster wrote, “Massive golf ball size hail blew out my back window.”