• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Amazing winter convection - graupel, snow, and quarter-sized hail, Pagosa Springs, CO

John Farley

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Joined
Apr 1, 2004
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1,937
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Pagosa Springs, CO
This evening in and around Pagosa Springs, CO, I observed some of the amazing winter convection I have ever seen - it produced a little snow, a lot of graupel, and dime to quarter-sized hail. The temperature while this was going on was mostly in the upper 30s to low 40s, although when the precipitation in the second cell I observed changed from mostly graupel to mostly snow, it quickly dropped to around 34.

I knew I wasn't dealing with ordinary winter snow showers when, walking out the door of a restaurant where my wife and I had just finished dinner after my last ski day of the season, I saw this:
storm41512-1.jpg



This picture was taken near the east edge of Pagosa Springs, looking northwest at the updraft base of the southeastward-moving cell. Note the knuckled anvil! This was about 100 feet from where I would later photograph quarter-sized hail. Shortly after this picture was taken, a little small graupel began to fall, mixed with a few wet snowflakes and maybe a few raindrops.
storm41512-2.jpg



I moved another mile east to get into the core and see what was falling. Lots of graupel and eventually a little dime-sized hail:
storm41512-3.jpg



Returning to the east edge of town, I found this:
storm41512-4.jpg


While I would certainly classify this as hail, it really seemed to be a sort of hail-graupel hyprid - probably formed mostly by dry accumulation (i.e. rime accumulating on what started out as a snowflake), but it did seem to have gone through some melt-freeze cycle, i.e. the "wet accumulation" process that produces hail with storms that occur in spring and summer environments. But this cell had almost no rain; mostly graupel and a little snow. No thunder and lightning that I saw, either. After this passed I noticed another even stronger-looking cell to the west, and moved to intercept it. It produced even more copious amounts of quarter-inch graupel, which then turned to snow. By now it was dark, so I called it a day, but on the way back noticed yet another cell moving on a similar track to the first one, and this one produced quite a bit of thunder and lightning, in contrast to the first two which produced none that I saw.

I've always wondered whether it is really possible to get snow and hail in the same storm - thought I saw it once a couple years ago between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, but now I know it's definitely possible. Severe hail, even, as the picture above shows.

I do have some video which eventually I will get posted, but it may be a while as I have a lot of competing commitments.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
We were watching this stuff last night at work. Got a few reports of dime sized hail near GJT and Silt as well. Thanks for posting this. dp
 
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