Hail — Santa Fe, New Mexico

2025-05-26 · near Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Event narrative

A trained spotter near the Santa Fe Plaza observed lots of accumulating penny size hail from a strong thunderstorm.

Wider weather episode

Higher moisture moved into eastern New Mexico early on May 25th behind a backdoor cold front. This added moisture combined with lift ahead of a weakening upper low over Utah resulting in the development of scattered showers and storms along and east of the central mountain chain. Several of these storms became strong to severe with one producing quarter size hail near Tierra Monte in the east slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and another producing a tornado near Floyd in western Roosevelt County and quarter to ping pong ball size hail between Cannon Air Force Base and downtown Clovis. Storms across eastern New Mexico mostly tapered off around sunset while the convectively enhanced backdoor front pushed west through the gaps of the central mountain chain.

Key Words: Severe Thunderstorm Winds, Large Hail, Tornado, Funnel Cloud.

Another round of showers and storms developed and moved across north central and eastern New Mexico during the afternoon and evening hours of May 26th due to higher surface moisture in place combining with added lift and instability from the upper level disturbance moving overhead. Penny to golf ball size hail was observed at several locations, a brief tornado was observed near Montezuma northeast of Las Vegas, and damaging straight line winds resulted in a flipped and overturned an 18-wheeler trailer near Forrest in southern Quay County. Storms exited east into Texas around sunset.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.6700, -105.9600)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1249282. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.