Pilot reported they diverted to the nearest airport after encountering severe turbulence and heavy rain flying through weather resulting in '...severe hail damage on leading edges on wings.' The nose cone and vertical stabilizer also had hail damage.

Narrative

Enroute from ZZZ1 to ZZZ we encountered a long stretch of thunderstorms. We coordinated with Center for a deviation to the south via a new waypoint that would bring us around the south end of the line and then come back up the east side. At the south end of our route we asked for deviations left and right to find a split though the last few cells. I slowed the airplane down and Center gave us a descent to 16000. We were IMC as we went through the gap in the weather. I had the weather radar up on my side. Radar showed we should be clear of any heavy precipitation. Suddenly we encountered severe turbulence and what sounded like heavy rain. We encountered a strong down draft along with some strong pitch and yaw deviations. Within 10 seconds we came out the other side into VMC conditions. Upon inspection of the plane from the cockpit we could tell we had severe hail damage on leading edges on wings. We made a joint section to continue to ZZZ that was about 25 miles to the north rather than continuing to fly down to ZZZ2 with the possibility of other severely damaged surfaces. We landed without any further issues. Upon inspection on the ground we found hail damage to nose cone; both leading edges and the vertical stabilizer.