Hail — Los Alamos, New Mexico

2012-10-12 · near (lam)los Alamos Airport, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Event narrative

KOB-TV reported from the Los Alamos Monitor Newspaper that multiple aircraft at the Los Alamos Airport were damaged. A thin metal surface on numerous planes was dinged and dented due to large hail. The Airport Manager was reported as saying up to 18 planes were damaged.

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 → (35.8800, -106.2700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 408836. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.