Hail — Los Alamos, New Mexico

2015-10-19 · near Los Alamos, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Event narrative

Penny to nickel size hail covered the ground.

Wider weather episode

An upper level low pressure system that slowly moved southward through California provided deep southerly flow over New Mexico. Subtropical moisture surged northward ahead of this system in several waves over New Mexico. The first wave of moisture and instability moved over the area early on October 19th and created severe thunderstorms from the predawn hours through the late morning. A couple inches of severe hail moved over Socorro and impacted travel along Interstate 25. Storms continued to develop through the morning and impacted areas of Valencia and Chaves counties with mainly nickel to quarter sized hail. Another round of thunderstorms with large hail impacted the region later in the day around Los Alamos, Espanola, and parts of the eastern plains.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.8900, -106.3100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 599589. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.