Hail — Taylor, Texas

2014-06-12 · near Abilene Elmdale Arpt, Taylor, Texas

Event narrative

A report of large hail measured at 4.5 inches was received from the Severe Hazards Analysis and Verification Experiment affiliated with the National Severe Storms Laboratory. The vicious hail storm struck during the Abilene Art Walk children's parade. The Taylor County Sheriff's Office reported up to a dozen people were treated for various injuries. About six of the injured were parade-goers who experienced minor head injuries from the hailstones. Substantial damage was reported in downtown Abilene and on the city's east side. Forty-eight Abilene patrol cars were heavily damaged. The Abilene Fire Department shut down Fire Station 4 at 1909 W. Stamford St. due to rain and hail damage. Local law enforcement reported several offices in downtown Abilene had windows broken, many of the trees in the downtown area were stripped of their leaves and many limbs were down in the street.

Wider weather episode

A cold front interacted with a very unstable airmass across a large part of West Central Texas to trigger supercell thunderstorms with giant size hail and damaging downburst winds. One of the supercell thunderstorms pelted the City of Abilene with hail the size of DVDs, causing some injuries at an outdoor event and widespread damage to vehicles, roofs and windows. It may have been one of the costliest hail storms to ever impact Abilene. The town of Rochelle was also severely impacted by the destructive thunderstorms winds. There were quite a few reports of large hail and damaging winds across the region.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.4900, -99.6900)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 530046. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.