Hail — Lubbock, Texas

2012-04-29 · near Doud, Lubbock, Texas

Event narrative

A destructive high-precipitation supercell exited Hockley County and continued moving southeast across southwest Lubbock County. A significant hailswath accompanied this supercell with hailstones as large as baseballs at times. Reports of baseball size hail were received from the following locations: Slide Rd and 150th St, 120th St and Milwaukee Ave, and also along FM 41 just west and east of Highway 87. Damage to vehicles and homes in this hailswath was severe with many windshields, windows and skylights completely destroyed. Several hundred homes will likely require new roofs.

Wider weather episode

Moist upslope flow along a retreating east-west oriented surface boundary focused scattered thunderstorms early this evening across the western South Plains. Ample wind shear and instability allowed several of these storms to quickly become supercellular producing very large hail, some giant, accompanied by destructive straight-line winds as they drifted east-southeast. The most prolific supercell developed west-northwest of Levelland around 1800 CST and moved eastward near Highway 114 before merging with another supercell near the Hockley-Lubbock County line. At this point, the supercell intensified further and turned southeast moving across southwest and south-central Lubbock County as a significant high precipitation supercell. Destructive winds and very large hail (up to softball size in a few locations) accompanied this storm as it tracked from near Smyer southeast to Woodrow creating extensive damage to structures and vehicles in its path. A NWS storm survey revealed the most significant damage occurred from wind-driven hail along FM 41 just west of Highway 87 and also between FM 179 and Woodrow Road. In some instances, the west-facing exterior of homes in these areas was completely shredded. This damage was compounded by the supercell's slow motion which resulted in up to a 15-minute period of destructive wind gusts as high as 95 mph as measured by a West Texas Mesonet site located 6SSW Wolfforth.

Later this evening, the low-level jet intensified and ignited additional severe storms over portions of the central and southern South Plains. One of these storms was a slow-moving elevated supercell that moved over areas of southeast Hockley and southwest Lubbock Counties previously impacted by the earlier supercell. This storm created additional instances of large hail; however, excessive rainfall in a short time span over already wet soils lead to large areas of mostly rural flooding. Many roads especially between Levelland and Wolfforth became impassable due to swollen playa lakes. Nearly 20 miles of FM 1585 was inundated with water and disabled at least two vehicles.

Total economic losses were estimated at $25 million.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.5100, -101.9400)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 368935. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.