Narrative:

We had been experiencing continuous light turbulence during our descent on the gibbz2 arrival to washington dulles. ATC gave us an initial heads-up that we could expect occasional moderate turbulence. I called the flight attendants and told them to take their jumpseats and that they would have about 5-10 minutes prior to the turbulence beginning. I followed up with a P/a to the passengers and then the turbulence began soon after. We were approximately 1 hour out from iad. The turbulence never let up; so I called the flight attendants and informed them that it did not appear we would be getting a smooth ride the rest of the way in so they should remain at their jumpseats for the duration of the flight. We sent dispatch a message for the moderate turbulence and they concurred that they had already had several reports of turbulence from other aircraft. We had the radar on and we were actively using both the auto mode and manual to get the best picture of the weather we were dealing with. For the most part we were looking at heavy rain. We were following another [company] aircraft on the arrival that was approximately 20 miles in front of us. At 6000 feet we heard a [company] aircraft state they were experiencing hail. ATC never informed us or any of the other aircraft on the radio where that aircraft was. We were actively trying to figure out where the weather that was causing the hail was. The radar was getting a lot of attenuation due to the heavy rain showers. We saw the heavy rain showers about 10 miles ahead and got a turn from ATC but we still experienced severe turbulence +/- 200 feet and +/- 40kts and we were also in light hail for a short time. We informed ATC and they got us turned onto final approach a short time later. We checked with the flight attendants to make sure they were ok in the back and they reported no injuries; everyone was ok. After arriving at the gate we informed maintenance of the severe turbulence and the encounter with hail. There appeared to be no damage to the aircraft but I left before the technician had completed all of their inspections. I also spoke with dispatch on the phone to give a verbal report of the encounter with severe turbulence.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 Captain reported encountering severe turbulence and hail during arrival into IAD.

Narrative: We had been experiencing continuous light turbulence during our descent on the gibbz2 arrival to Washington Dulles. ATC gave us an initial heads-up that we could expect occasional moderate turbulence. I called the flight attendants and told them to take their jumpseats and that they would have about 5-10 minutes prior to the turbulence beginning. I followed up with a P/A to the passengers and then the turbulence began soon after. We were approximately 1 hour out from IAD. The turbulence never let up; so I called the flight attendants and informed them that it did not appear we would be getting a smooth ride the rest of the way in so they should remain at their jumpseats for the duration of the flight. We sent dispatch a message for the moderate turbulence and they concurred that they had already had several reports of turbulence from other aircraft. We had the radar on and we were actively using both the auto mode and manual to get the best picture of the weather we were dealing with. For the most part we were looking at heavy rain. We were following another [Company] aircraft on the arrival that was approximately 20 miles in front of us. At 6000 feet we heard a [Company] aircraft state they were experiencing hail. ATC never informed us or any of the other aircraft on the radio where that aircraft was. We were actively trying to figure out where the weather that was causing the hail was. The radar was getting a lot of attenuation due to the heavy rain showers. We saw the heavy rain showers about 10 miles ahead and got a turn from ATC but we still experienced severe turbulence +/- 200 feet and +/- 40kts and we were also in light hail for a short time. We informed ATC and they got us turned onto final approach a short time later. We checked with the flight attendants to make sure they were ok in the back and they reported no injuries; everyone was ok. After arriving at the gate we informed maintenance of the severe turbulence and the encounter with hail. There appeared to be no damage to the aircraft but I left before the technician had completed all of their inspections. I also spoke with dispatch on the phone to give a verbal report of the encounter with severe turbulence.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.