The cells themselves are very delicate, much of the job of the panel is to protect the cells. Construction can vary, but generally they are designed to withstand normal weather events, just like a roof is. That said, weather can occasionally exceed those design limitations.

Large hail can break through a polycarbonate skylight or the tempered glass of a car, it’ll do the same to a solar panel covered in the same.

From a solar installer in Colorado: https://blog.namastesolar.com/hail-solar-panels-how-much-hai....

seems they're likely damaged by hail roughly the size of a golf ball, but in the link above they point to an example where 2.75in diameter hail did little damage to panels at NREL.

It's "size of golfball" hail that makes me wonder if shielding the solar panel with 40mm wire mesh (often called chicken wire) is worth the solar efficiency loss.

One thing about Climate Change is: more energy in the system means worse extreme events, and the less extreme events more often. But when is the cut over point?

You know, that would be a very serious design flaw of they just broke like that. Hence the reason they are weatherproof...

The solar cells themselves are usually quite delicate, but the surrounding material keeps them safe in the case of weatherproof ones.

I thought that as well, but then I thought "well car windshields can be busted by hail, so maybe there is just insurance, like we have for cars". By the replies I've gotten, looks like that's not the case!

Silicon cells are quite brittle, think like very thin dry pasta with a metallic cling. You can find pieces sold in lots on ebay, mostly due to operator error when soldering them.

they will not (have panels, faced multiple hail storms)