Hail — De Baca, New Mexico

2022-06-03 · near Yeso, De Baca, New Mexico

Event narrative

A trained spotter near Yeso reported golf-ball size hail that lasted about five minutes from a severe thunderstorm.

Wider weather episode

The dryline sharpened across eastern New Mexico during the afternoon of June 3, 2022. As a storm system tracked across the central Rockies, its associated upper-level jet provided better wind shear across the area where there was also an abundant amount of instability. Thunderstorms developed early in the afternoon across the central high terrain, and then steering flow tracked these thunderstorms in an easterly direction onto the plains where they quickly intensified. Large hail was the primary concern with these severe thunderstorms. A thunderstorm in central San Miguel County likely produced the largest hail of the day with radar estimating two to three inch hail, however, its remote location provided no verification. In De Baca County, a long-duration and slow-moving complex of thunderstorms produced large hail near Yeso. In southwest Chaves County, a low precipitation supercell near Dunken that had numerous storm chasers on it had a well-defined wall cloud. While it produced hail up to one inch, a tornado never developed.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.4400, -104.6100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1018470. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.