Day 5: The largest hail in the country, 3 supercells, Mexico

I want to start off this post with a big thank you to everyone who has reached out to me over the last few days! I appreciate everyone who is reading this blog, and if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions I welcome any and all input.

If you had told me last night that today would end up being the craziest day yet of the chase, I would tell you flatly: no way.

If you had told me that despite only a Marginal risk from the SPC, I would end up seeing tennis-ball sized hail (largest in the country today), rare mammatus clouds so pronounced that our professor called them "as good as they come", and that I would sit through a violent hailstorm watching quarter-sized hail shatter against the window amidst hurricane-force winds less than a foot away from me, I would have said you were crazy.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say... PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!)

Mammatus clouds in a storm near Fort Davis.

We started the day in Midland, near where the center of action would likely be. Model data from the HRRR showed lively pulse storms spawning in a similar location to the last two days, with the added possible benefit of a cold front approaching from the north. Surface observations showed a distinct moisture gradient with much drier conditions near Carlsbad in SE New Mexico to unusually juicy air in Del Rio, east along the Rio Grande. With this in mind, we headed south to the high desert near the Mexican Border.

After eating lunch in the charming town of Fort Stockton, we headed even further west toward Balmorhea. I know this is a cliche - but it's hard to fathom how vast Texas really is until you spend 4 days driving around and don't see the same place twice. Seeing a cell crop up among the peaks to our south, we turned toward the mountains on the twisting road to Fort Davis.

It was a ride I will not soon forget. The combination of dramatic mesas, the Davis Mountains rising over 1,000 feet above either side of the road, and the heavy storms made the drive truly surreal. The landscape is rugged beauty personified.

I took the above picture of the mammatus around that time. We drove straight into the belly of a storm while on that winding road. I was initially confused: we were nearing 5,000 feet altitude, and I saw white covering much of the ground. Could there still be snow here?  No - it was hail -  so much that the road was layered an inch thick. A fog rose above the surrounding grass where the subliming hail cooled the air. I felt like I was in Middle Earth.

Hail blanketing the ground between Fort Davis and Alpine.

But the hailstorms were only just beginning. As impressive as this was, we saw a much more powerful storm working its way east on US 90 about 80 miles down the road. 70 dBZ tops! 60 mph inflow! But would it hold together? We headed that way.

An hour later, I could not believe my eyes. Massive hail stones 2" in diameter littered the roadway and hillsides! We had just come across a massive storm that had no signs of weakening, heading perfectly down the area's major road. Our luck was incredible, even if the cell reception was decidedly less so!

1.5-2" hail in the Sanderson, TX supercell.

With almost no radar coverage (the nearest radar was 130 miles away) and with cell service virtually non-existent, we had to rely on our cloud-spotting abilities and a bit of luck to get in position. Getting intermittent scans on my phone, we turned a corner toward where the hail should have been, and my jaw dropped.

Hail the size of pool balls and tennis balls was scattered along the roads and in the ditches. The few cars there were pulled over under cover with wipers waving furiously and emergency lights on. We hopped out and grabbed some stones. Never again do I want to see hail that large unless I'm in someone else's car!

2.2.5-2.5" hail from the same Sanderson, TX storm.

The hail core seemed to have lifted north and east, so we drove another 15 miles to the next intersection (seriously) and turned north. I had a tiny bit of reception on the road north that allowed us to nudge ourselves into the path of the hail core for the first time to directly experience the hail. I'll let this video show what happened next:

https://youtu.be/Sb5WfB7doVo

It was the first time this trip that we had gotten ourselves into a severe hail core. The hail hit the van with so much power we were afraid the windows would shatter. Dr. Brown aligned the van so that we faced into the wind to give us a better view. The only thing I've seen that's comparable is Hurricane Wilma - just add hail.

It didn't last long, but it lasted long enough. By 7 pm, the storms were beginning to weaken. We re-traced our steps and caught sight of a pretty storm near the Mexican border. The clouds, especially on the right (inflow) side, glowed aquamarine with hail.

Tomorrow, the risk appears to be extremely marginal that we'll see anything severe at all - let alone anything as spectacular as we've seen the last couple days. The tentative plan is to go the Carlsbad Caverns. I'll keep you posted!