NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and Hailios sign a research agreement
A Cooperative Research and Development Agreement pairs NSSL’s HailCam, which films hailstones as they fall, with a Tessera on the same vehicle, which records the impact energy of each one.
NOAA · NSSL · CRADACameras and impact energy, same stones
The agreement
NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma, has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Hailios. NOAA announced it on September 8, 2026, on its Technology Partnerships Office site. CRADAs are how NOAA works with private companies on research that serves both sides and NOAA’s mission.
Two instruments, one storm, the same stones
NSSL brings its HailCam: high-speed cameras and specialized lights in a protective cage, mounted on a pickup truck, that capture the size, shape and speed of hailstones as they fall. Hailios brings a Tessera, which NOAA describes as an impact disdrometer: a wireless, solar-powered instrument that records the impact energy of each hailstone that strikes it.
The Tessera rides on the HailCam vehicle, in view of the cameras. That lets researchers tie what the cameras see of an individual stone to the impact the Tessera records from it, in natural storm conditions rather than in a lab.
Why it matters
NOAA says a better understanding of how hail falls, and of how its impacts vary, can improve severe weather warnings and inform hail-resistant materials and structures. For Hailios, it means the impact energy Tessera records can be studied stone by stone against what the stone actually looked like.
In NOAA’s announcement, Hailios co-founder Lucas Schiff calls the partnership “a significant leap forward in our mission to protect communities from severe weather.”
The full announcement, with NSSL’s description of the work, is on NOAA’s site.
Meet the Tessera on the truck
The same instrument that measures hail on roofs, poles and solar trackers: every impact, its energy and its timing, recorded to the second.