Hail — Los Alamos, New Mexico

2012-10-12 · near Los Alamos, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Event narrative

Newspaper report with images of significant hail damage to a mobile home in Los Alamos. Home owners reported hail was ping pong ball sized. Location is estimated from article giving home address. Time is estimated, based on radar imagery and other hail reports in the area. All images attached to this event are courtesy of the Los Alamos Daily Post newspaper.

Wider weather episode

This day started out active with severe thunderstorms erupting over and east of the south central mountains during the early morning hours on the nose of a weak mid level jet. Precipitation began to form in Arizona ahead of an upper level cut off low coming in off the coast of California. Activity expanded over portions of western and central New Mexico throughout the day as the low shifted east. In addition to the upper level system, a back door cold front had also moved into northeastern New Mexico. Strong to severe thunderstorms developed over the area in this pattern with numerous reports of large hail and damaging winds over northern New Mexico and the eastern plains. A tornado even touched down in the Pecos Wilderness to the north of Pecos.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.9002, -106.2974)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 408587. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.