John Farley
Supporter
Another pleasant surprise-3 very photogenic storms, and I didn't have to drive more than 20 miles from Santa Fe to see them! This afternoon I noticed a strong storm just southeast of the Santa Fe area (actually my wife, who was out in the swimming pool, noticed it first and pointed it out to me). I decided to head out and try to get some pictures, and I didn't have to go far to see the storm's great structure. Note the rainfoot on the right and the strong updraft on the left side of the storm in this picture:
This picture was taken looking to the southeast, as the storm moved slowly to the south-southwest. A few minutes later, the storm developed some nice hail shafts - note particularly the one near the lower center of the picture:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-2.JPG
Then, as I got a little farther, I noticed a nice haboob off to my south:
Before long dust was flying all around me, as the gust front surged west and northwest from the storm. Around this time, about 3 p.m., the storm went SVR-warned for 1-inch hail in the Eldorado-Lamy area. At this time, a new tower was going up just NW of the storm, and a little farther to the NW, a line of towers was going up, with one cell already producing rain, along what appeared to be a line from about Bandolier National Monument to just northeast of Cochiti Lake. When the gust front hit this, it went nuts, exploding into a line of intense thunderstorms. I crossed under the RFB of this line at about La Bajada Hill on I-25, and exited at the Cochiti Lake exit, heading west about a mile where I stopped to watch the exploding line of storms, now just to my north. Soon, I was in the hail:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-4.JPG
Most of the hail was around 1/3 to 1/2 inch in diameter, but it got heavier and seemed to be getting larger, so I decided to head back to I-25 and to back to the top of La Bajada, as the heaviest of the core was just west of I-25 heading directly toward where I was sitting. As I went back toward 25, the amount of hail decreased, but the size got a little larger, with a few dime to penny sized stones. When I got back to the top of the hill and exited at the first exit, there was less rain and hail but still a little. I had a good view of the updraft base on the back (NE) side of the storm, and was treated to a good lightning show:
After a while this part of the line weakened, so I went back down the hill to see if there was any accumulation of hail on the ground, but there was not. So I headed back to Santa Fe. As I did, I noticed a new broken line of storms north of the city. A particularly intense cell was near the foot of the mountains, and soon there was quite a bit of rising scud under this cell's updraft. To my amazement, this evolved into a rather impressive, though non-rotating, wall cloud:
This picture was taken looking northeast at the storm, which was moving about due south - which puts the wall cloud on its inflow side, right under the main updraft where you would expect it to be. This storm gave me some great structure:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-7.JPG
Additionally, I was lucky enough to catch some lightning with the mountains in the background:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-8.JPG
This picture was taken looking to the southeast, as the storm moved slowly to the south-southwest. A few minutes later, the storm developed some nice hail shafts - note particularly the one near the lower center of the picture:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-2.JPG
Then, as I got a little farther, I noticed a nice haboob off to my south:
Before long dust was flying all around me, as the gust front surged west and northwest from the storm. Around this time, about 3 p.m., the storm went SVR-warned for 1-inch hail in the Eldorado-Lamy area. At this time, a new tower was going up just NW of the storm, and a little farther to the NW, a line of towers was going up, with one cell already producing rain, along what appeared to be a line from about Bandolier National Monument to just northeast of Cochiti Lake. When the gust front hit this, it went nuts, exploding into a line of intense thunderstorms. I crossed under the RFB of this line at about La Bajada Hill on I-25, and exited at the Cochiti Lake exit, heading west about a mile where I stopped to watch the exploding line of storms, now just to my north. Soon, I was in the hail:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-4.JPG
Most of the hail was around 1/3 to 1/2 inch in diameter, but it got heavier and seemed to be getting larger, so I decided to head back to I-25 and to back to the top of La Bajada, as the heaviest of the core was just west of I-25 heading directly toward where I was sitting. As I went back toward 25, the amount of hail decreased, but the size got a little larger, with a few dime to penny sized stones. When I got back to the top of the hill and exited at the first exit, there was less rain and hail but still a little. I had a good view of the updraft base on the back (NE) side of the storm, and was treated to a good lightning show:
After a while this part of the line weakened, so I went back down the hill to see if there was any accumulation of hail on the ground, but there was not. So I headed back to Santa Fe. As I did, I noticed a new broken line of storms north of the city. A particularly intense cell was near the foot of the mountains, and soon there was quite a bit of rising scud under this cell's updraft. To my amazement, this evolved into a rather impressive, though non-rotating, wall cloud:
This picture was taken looking northeast at the storm, which was moving about due south - which puts the wall cloud on its inflow side, right under the main updraft where you would expect it to be. This storm gave me some great structure:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-7.JPG
Additionally, I was lucky enough to catch some lightning with the mountains in the background:
http://www.johnefarley.com/chase70308-8.JPG
