John Farley
Supporter
Mods, can NM and probably a few other states be added to the title thread?
Today near Las Vegas, NM, I encountered the greatest accumulation of hail I have ever seen. I was kind of watching the storm, both visually when it first developed and later on radar, from the Santa Fe area, and when the second SVR warning was issued, I decided to head out. I could see right away that the storm looked quite intense, with backsheared anvil and overshooting top. Soon a new cell formed a little west of the first one, and as I nudged into the back edge of it, I encountered penny hail on the ground and some smaller hail still falling. It accumulated enough on I-25 near mile marker 330 to cause a car to slide into the ditch.
Once the hail there let up, after a little indecision about what to do next, I decided to go on to Las Vegas to see how much hail had fallen, as the storm had now moved on to the southeast, with little chance of catching up in the NM road network, at least without really getting cored. Glad I did! Easily 3 or 4 inches on the ground even 45 minutes or more after the hail ended there. I've seen hail that deep before, but only in a little narrow band. Today, the ground was covered over a swath at least 2 miles wide and I have no idea how long, with two embedded swaths of deeper hail 2-4 inches deep. Again, the largest I saw was penny-size, though some of it may have been larger when it fell - as I said, this was 45 minutes later. It may be several days before I have time to write up a full report due to upcoming commitments, but in the meantime here are a few pics:
Today near Las Vegas, NM, I encountered the greatest accumulation of hail I have ever seen. I was kind of watching the storm, both visually when it first developed and later on radar, from the Santa Fe area, and when the second SVR warning was issued, I decided to head out. I could see right away that the storm looked quite intense, with backsheared anvil and overshooting top. Soon a new cell formed a little west of the first one, and as I nudged into the back edge of it, I encountered penny hail on the ground and some smaller hail still falling. It accumulated enough on I-25 near mile marker 330 to cause a car to slide into the ditch.
Once the hail there let up, after a little indecision about what to do next, I decided to go on to Las Vegas to see how much hail had fallen, as the storm had now moved on to the southeast, with little chance of catching up in the NM road network, at least without really getting cored. Glad I did! Easily 3 or 4 inches on the ground even 45 minutes or more after the hail ended there. I've seen hail that deep before, but only in a little narrow band. Today, the ground was covered over a swath at least 2 miles wide and I have no idea how long, with two embedded swaths of deeper hail 2-4 inches deep. Again, the largest I saw was penny-size, though some of it may have been larger when it fell - as I said, this was 45 minutes later. It may be several days before I have time to write up a full report due to upcoming commitments, but in the meantime here are a few pics:
