Florida and icy precipitation may not seem to mesh together well. But when it comes to hail, the Sunshine State has a sneaky reputation.

On March 25, 1992, 33 years ago today, parts of central Florida, including Orlando, were pelted by severe thunderstorms with destructive hail up to 3 inches in diameter, a bit larger than a baseball.

Home roofs were damaged and windows were smashed. In Orange County, most windows were broken out of a cluster of greenhouses considered one of the nation's most concentrated areas of nurseries. Golf ball hail also hit the Disney complex and high winds blew down trees.

Heavy rain within the severe thunderstorm pushed hail into large piles a foot or more deep, trapping motorists not use to having to deal with winter driving, much less hail.

This was Florida's costliest hailstorm, with damage estimated at $134 million, adjusted for inflation to 2024. It was also a part of a cluster of damaging severe thunderstorms across the South from March 24-25 responsible for $1.8 billion in damage.

Incredibly, this was the second big hailstorm of the month in central Florida. In early March, another hailstorm battered the north Orlando metro area, trapping vehicles in several feet of hail .

Hail is actually quite common in Florida, especially from March through July , according to the National Weather Service. There have been 18 other instances of hail at least 3 inches in diameter in Florida according NOAA's database since 1950. That includes three cases of grapefruit size (4.5 inch diameter) hail in Marion Co. (May 13, 2007), Bradford Co. (March 1, 2003) and Polk County (March 30, 1996).

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky , X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook .