For others like me wondering how hail could get up that high!
from the article:
Although encounters with hail are rare while flying, retired captain and author Tom Bunn says it is possible for hail to strike at high altitude.
He told Inverse: 'A powerful updraft in a thunderstorm can kick hailstones out of the top into the clear air above the cloud.'
A hail shooting updraft cannon.
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Hail forms when an updraft inside a storm carries rain upward, where the rain freezes. As the updraft weakens, the frozen rain descends back into the cloud. Because the ice is now colder than the moisture inside the cloud, and water condenses on the outside of the ice. The forming hail stone is again caught in the updraft, where is ascends, and the added water freezes. The process goes on over and over until the hailstone gets so big it passes out of the updraft.
Or the updraft in the cloud will suddenly weaken, and all of the hail contained inside the cloud is dropped in a torrent.
Since the top of a thunderhead (cumulonimbus) cloud can reach up to 60,000, hail can be present that high. Aircraft normally fly around cumulonimbus clouds to avoid the wind currents. Sometimes if there is a long line of thunderheads, though, the plane may have to navigate through them, finding a spot where the weather appears to be least severe.
