Hailstorm slams Santa Rosa, damaging buildings

By Journal Staff on Thu, Jul 4, 2013 POSTED: 12:05 am
LAST UPDATED: 1:24 pm


This sedan was stranded on a bridge in Santa Rosa on Wednesday evening after a storm dumped as much as 2 feet of golf- and paintball-sized hail on the town, causing widespread property damage. (M.E. Sprengelmeyer/Guadalupe County Communicator)


As much as 2 feet of hail fell in parts of Santa Rosa on Wednesday evening, with reports of golf-ball-sized hail crashing through skylights and partially collapsing a roof.
A National Weather Service meteorologist, who had just spoken with the Guadalupe County emergency manager late Wednesday, said he received no reports of injuries. The moderately sized thunderstorm formed north of Santa Rosa, then moved south, according to the meteorologist.
“I have lived here all my life, and I have never seen this,” County Manager George Dodge told the Guadalupe County Communicator, as he drove around the town surveying damage.
Storms of that type are common in the New Mexico eastern plains, meteorologist Clay Anderson said, and they often can dump a lot of big hail in uninhabited areas.
“But in this particular case, the core moved right over Santa Rosa,” Anderson said.
The storm began around 6 p.m., dropping paintball-sized hail for 20 minutes, according to the newspaper. One National Weather Service local storm report said nickle to golf-ball-sized hail fell.
The town was then left covered in ice, stranding motorists on two Route 66 bridges.
The newspaper also reported damage to car ports, neon Route 66 signs and a Family Dollar store, in addition to flooding after the hail melted. The damage comes the night before a regional youth-baseball tournament and a car show, the newspaper said.

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