[FRIAM] This morning's hailstorm

[steve smith]

On 5/6/25 12:25 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> *To Non-Santefeans:  the occasion for this correspondence is the fact 
> that it has rained, thundered, and hailed pretty steadily here for the 
> last two days, a lot of it at night.  Total rain not that great (over 
> an inch) but the steadiness and the duration has be remarkable for 
> this desert town.
> *
> *
> *
> Hi Steve,  Certainly diurnal heating is the most common way to kick of 
> mountain thunderstorms with hail.  The only thing I can imagine is 
> that the air is very unstable and there is enough lift provided by the 
> mountains to capitalize on this instability. The radar shows a series 
> of showers riding up slope from ABQ to SAF.   Also, as you will see 
> from the chart below which was made at just the time that another big 
> hailstorm was pelting Trader Joes, there is a long skinny CAPE and all 
> of it is above the freezing level.  So there is several thousand feet 
> for hail to form in. All that airmass is moving rapidly to the NE, 
> providing a lot of sheer with the lower levels.

NST -

The weather patterns yielding MY hailstorm(s) have come from the SW, 
effectively following the rio-grande and open low(er) country W of ABQ 
(I saw that one of the big I40 Casinos shut down over heavy hail a day 
or so ago)...   Maybe it is Buckman Mesa uplift that triggers *my* 
hail?  15 miles W of the Sangre foothils and 10 E of the Jemez shoulders 
(but part of the lava/tuff mesa system).

Buckman Mesa seems to be a factor in my micro-weather patterns. We have 
a *very* small watershed dedicated to us (bounded/including) the E and N 
sides of Buckman...    it means we have *very* intermittent runoff but 
it comes with significant flooding in the arroyo behind us...  it goes 
from dry sand to 6' standing waves in minutes every few years...   this 
weather event (still coming in gentle pulses) hasn't triggered that yet, 
but the water infiltration wells built just N of Otowi Bridge (IMBY) and 
the support infrastructure (mechanical building wiht backup generators 
and pressure tanks) is at risk of A) being flooded in ways the designers 
seem to not anticipate/acknowledge and B) redirect waters to my 
neighbors (more than me, 10' higher than the lowest property along a 
very gentle slope).

This little bit of wet weather is incredibly welcome after no 
appreciable moisture since a foot or two  of snow late Autumn 
(October/November?)...   My attempts to get some forage/cover growing 
for my chickens (and ourselves) has been fairly unrewarding... but my 
experience is that the first rainstorm after the ground warms (often not 
until June) always kicks off all the seeds (wild and planted) with a 
vengeance.

I've been doomscrolling for climate tipping points for a while and 
discovered that Rockstrom, et-al in Stockholm are now using the term 
tipping-cascades...

Me, I hope Trump builds an anchor Trump Resort property in Southern 
Greenland just in time for the ice-sheet to slough off, scraping him and 
his into the ocean and inundating all of his near-coastal properties.

Schadenfreude much? yah...

- SAS


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