Over his long career, Hales has distinguished himself with innovative ideas, trusted leadership, excellent forecasts for the protection of life and property, and important contributions to the science of severe storms.

While at the Los Angeles office, he participated in a local sea-breeze research project releasing pilot balloons (PIBALs) near Lake Elsinore in southern California to assess the vertical wind structure in the lower atmosphere.

[3] Hales was an SPC lead forecaster for a longer period than anyone in the history of an organization that began in 1952; he served in that position 36 years from 1975 until 2011.

During that period, he issued numerous timely and accurate forecasts and watches for many historic American tornado and severe thunderstorm events.

The MCD contained technical information on topics such as storm trends and potential watch issuance in the next several hours.

In particular, his research in Arizona monsoonal thunderstorms [4][5] and Los Angeles Basin tornadoes[6] were important early steps toward better forecasts of those phenomena.

Hales also provided early analysis of organized, westward moving, intense thunderstorm clusters across the Arizona desert.

By blending data from satellite, radar, and surface observations, he detailed the structure and movement of one particularly damaging event in 1973, and provided new scientific understanding of these long-lived convective systems.

In particular, he identified the role of orographic forcing on low-level wind field patterns that supported development of shallow supercells affecting the Los Angeles Basin[6] Hales has been involved in a variety of other research endeavors that greatly improved our understanding of extreme weather events and benefited operational severe storm forecasting, including the Kansas City flash flood of 12 September 1977[9] and the "Palm Sunday II" tornado outbreak of 1994.

Hales also served as a mentor for students participating in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at the National Weather Center in Norman.