Hail — Torrance, New Mexico

2017-06-25 · near (cqc)clines Corners, Torrance, New Mexico

Event narrative

A major hail storm struck Interstate 40 at State Road 3 producing significant damage and impacts to travel. Hail up to the size of tennis balls slammed the Interstate. Numerous vehicles had windshields smashed out. Traffic was stopped for over two hours. Emergency response personnel attended to several stranded vehicles with injured motorists. Hail was up to five inches deep and flooding was reported along highway.

Wider weather episode

The upper level high pressure system responsible for a scorching heatwave across New Mexico finally weakened it's grip on New Mexico while retreating southwestward into the Baja region. Deep atmospheric moisture surged westward across New Mexico and combined with afternoon heating and instability to generate widespread showers and thunderstorms. A cluster of thunderstorms developed from the Gila region northward along the Continental Divide before noon then spread eastward across the Rio Grande Valley through the afternoon hours. Quarter to half dollar size hail impacted areas around Los Alamos. Meanwhile, scattered to numerous discrete supercell thunderstorms developed along the central mountain chain by mid afternoon. A pair of thunderstorms near Las Vegas and Sapello produced golf ball size hail. Hail up to the size of tennis balls slammed the Interstate 40 corridor east of Clines Corners resulting in significant damage to vehicles. Several injuries were reported. Thunderstorms then merged into large clusters and linear segments by late afternoon before developing into a large mesoscale convective complex over eastern New Mexico.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.0009, -105.4454)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 696476. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.