Hail — Union, New Mexico

2025-08-02 · near Hayden, Union, New Mexico

Event narrative

Hail up to ping pong balls caused broken windows, dents in cars, and resulted in the death of at least 27 birds a few miles north of Hayden.

Wider weather episode

The monsoon high was centered across southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico on August 1st and 2nd. Northwest flow around the upper high circulation along with embedded disturbances in this flow resulted in the development of showers and thunderstorms across parts of central and eastern New Mexico during the afternoon and evening hours. Thunderstorms resulted in some flash flooding on and downstream of the Ruidoso burn scars and in Lincoln on August 1st and on and downstream of the Salt burn scar on August 2nd. Meanwhile, severe storms across northeast and east central New Mexico resulted in some large hail near Ocate, Miami, Sedan, Hayden, and Amistad. Severe thunderstorms also produced damaging wind gusts in Santa Rosa and Hayden.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.0100, -103.2700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1269669. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.