June 14, 2024 - Two Storm Chases in One Day -Trementina, NM and Santa Fe, NM

by John Farley


This day's setup involved a Pacific low pressure trough that would travel across New Mexico from southwest to northeast. The trough, which originated in the Baja California area, was oriented northwest and southeast and would lift northeastward over the course of the day and evening, triggering widespread showers and thundestorms across New Mexico. It was part of a larger area of troughiness crossing the Rocky Mountains that was expected to trigger storms over a fairly widespread area of the mountains and high plains. The most favorable setup, due to stronger wind fields and perhaps better instability, looked to be in the area of northeast Colorado and parts of western Nebraska and Kansas. The shear in that area, though stronger than in NM, would be more favorable for straight-line winds than tornadoes, although SPC did have that area in a 2% tornado risk and a categorical slight risk, with a marginal risk for New Mexico along and east of the mountains and along and north of I-40. (As it turns out, the severe weather that occurred in the CO/NE/KS area ended up being pretty similar to what occurred in New Mexico, and the only tornado in the United States - a landspout - was in western NM, northeast of Gallup.) The models mostly showed spotty areas of greater and lesser instability and shear across central and eastern NM, not real consistent with one another on those parameters. It looked like CAPE could range from 300-500 up to as much as 2,000 j/kg depending on the model and location. Even the lower part of that range can sometimes be enough for severe weather in NM, though. The model showed a rather diffuse moisture gradient across eastern New Mexico - maybe sharp enough to call a diffuse dryline, maybe not. Farther north in Colorado, the dryline looked to be better-defined, probably another reason why SPC was more concerned about that area. Models showed mostly southerly winds east of the central mountains of New Mexico, and northerly winds west of them, which largely verified for the morning and early afternoon. NWS ABQ, in their afternoon forecast discussion, even mentioned the oddness of winds being northerly on the west side of the mountains in areas that were still east of the advancing low pressure trough, but that was indeed what the models had predicted.

What the models were more consistent on for New Mexico than their predictions of instability and shear was the general idea of storms forming near the mountains and moving onto the plains in the early to mid-afternoon, and then another line of storms in the early evening farther west around the Rio Grande Valley. And the models turned out to be pretty much right on this general scenario, though both batches of storms initiated somewhat earlier than the models had predicted. Several models were honing in on the area southeast of Santa Fe and south of Las Vegas for the heaviest activity in the first round of storms, moving from there onto the plains. Most models had these storms either dissipated or into Texas by 5 or 6 p.m.

Taking all this in consideration, I figured that, starting out from Santa Fe I would target somewhere around Las Vegas, NM for the afternoon, then after those storms dissipated or headed for Texas, I would double back toward Santa Fe for the second, evening round of storms. I probably spent a little too much time trying to figure out the various contradictions in the models, not immediately noticing that storms were already firing in the late morning up and down the central mountains, including some pretty close to Santa Fe. In central New Mexico, the sky owas overcast and the storms that were already under way by late morning were very high-based, to the point that they looked elevated, though I do not think they really were. In any case, they were numerous and pretty much scattered all over in and near the mountains in central NM. Not long before noon, I noticed that a strong storm had gone up near Vaughan and was moving toward Santa Rosa. Not far from the area the models had been honing in on, though perhaps a bit further south and east. Other fairly strong storms were in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I decided it was time to get going, and was out the door and on the way to Las Vegas by around noon.

Chase 1

I briefly stopped in Las Vegas for gas and a to-go sandwich around 1. There were two or three strong storms over the mountains from west of Wagon Mound northeastward to near the Colorado border. And the storm to the south was nearing Santa Rosa and looking pretty strong on radar. For a few reasons, I decided to head east from Las Vegas to intercept the Santa Rosa storm. Although the storms over the mountains looked good, they were moving away from me and even the closest one might be hard to catch up with. And I was not even sure they would move out of the mountains. (Although it turns out one of them did produce a severe gust in Raton.) Besides being easier to intercept, the southern storm was also moving into an area of clearer air and warmer temperatures than the storms in the mountains, so it would have better instability to work with. As to intercepting that storm, now a little southwest of Santa Rosa, I nearly made another run down US 84 like the other day (June 11), but noticed a new storm going up at the northeast end of the cluster and figured that if I went that way, I might end up behind the storms trying to play catch-up in an area with a very poor road network. Which is exactly what would have happened had I done that. So instead, I headed east on route 104 out of Las Vegas, toward Trujillo, Trementina, and Conchas Lake. About 35 miles east of Las Vegas, this road drops down a high escarpment through a canyon, emerging on the plains and mesalands a few miles west of Trementina, which is 50 miles or so east of Las Vegas. By the time I entered this canyon around 1:35 p.m., I could see the storms ahead to my south, still fairly distant, through a rather hazy sky. The cluster that went up just ahead of the Santa Rosa storm had now become the primary storm in this group, but another one was going up to the northeast of it. I took a few pictures at a scenic overlook in the canyon, of both the storms and the canyon, from a spot where I had a clear view of both. Then, I continued on to Trementina for the storm intercept. The radar returns for this cell and others in a short, narrow line extending to the south were pretty strong, suggesting torrential rain and some hail. I watched the primary storm, a few miles south of Trementina, from a couple spots in Trementina, as it produced what looked like a hail shaft and some OK structure. Here are a couple pictures:

By this time the storm was not yet SVR-warned, but two special weather statements had been issued on it for wind up to 55 mph and nickle-sized hail - about as close as a storm can get to the threshhold for "severe" without crossing it. There was a large SVR warning for a scattered cluster of storms farther east, covering a big chunk of northeast New Mexico. But I had no chance of catching up to those storms. Instead, I followed the storm I was on for 10 or 15 miles northeast from Trementina, as the new cell that had gone up northeast of the previous dominant storm became the strongest storm in the cluster, which was somewhat linear extending from northeast of Trementina back to the south. I mostly avoided the core, and was hit by only a couple small hailstones. The storm did briefly form a mildly interesting lowering, which began with the sudden formation of a large scud cloud under the updraft base, whih was quickly absorbed into the base. I thought a wall cloud might be forming, but it quickly became evident that the feature was more outflow-related, particularly given that it was on the leading edge of the storm:

I decided to try my camera lightning trigger and got one good bolt:

By 3:30 it was clear that I was not going to get ahead of the storm, the heaviest core of which passed just to my east, without driving in the storm for some distance and maybe not even then. So I decided to head back to Santa Fe and see what the predicted evening storms might bring. Around that time, a new SVR warning was issued, again for a very large area, that included the storm I had been chasing. Between this warning and another large warning farther north, pretty much all of New Mexico north of I-40 and east of my location was covered by these two warnings. Other large warnings extended into Colorado and eventuallly the TX and OK Panhandles and western Kansas. These warnings collectively covered about as big an area as the severe thunderstorm watch that was issued for estern CO, far norteast NM, and parts of the Panhandles.

Chase 2

As I headed back toward Santa Fe, I could see via radar that the expected new batch of storms forecast by the models to affect the Rio Grande Valley were under way. Actually, they appear to have been under way much earlier and farther west, probably being associated with the aforementioned landspout tonrado northeast of Gallup, which ocurred shortly before 2 p.m. I could not see these storms visually until I was pretty close to Santa Fe, but I could see them on radar. However, by the time I got to Santa Fe, the only strong storms in that cluster were just west o Albuquerque and well north of Los Alamos, moving east. The northern one was too far for me to get to, and I did not seriously consider going for the southern one because it was nearly over Albuquerque already. Chasing in large cities is usually not a winning proposition, and in any case I figured the storm would be into the mountains east of there before I could get to it, and I would be on the back side of it with limited visibility. So, I called it a chase, at least for the time being. As I drove into Santa Fe, I noticed that the wind there had finally shifted to southeast, which would offer a little better dirctional shear for any storms to work with. As it turns out, I was not in from the chase for long when I could see the movement of the storm was changing from easterly to northeasterly. A SVR warning was issued for Albuquerque. In the warning text, the storm was described as moving to the east, but it was clear from both the movement of the storm on radar and the warning polygon that the real movement was to the northeast. Around 5:30, with the storm still over the Albuquerque metro, a second SVR warning was issued, this time for the Santa Fe metro. Chase back on! I was back out by 5:40 or so, and bypassing Santa Fe on route 599, which runs NE and SW to the northwest of the city, I soon had the storm in view:

More impressive than anything I had seen on the earlier chase. My original plan was to head down I-25 a bit to maybe the Waldo CAnyon Road exit to watch the storm move in, but the storm's movement was too fast for that to work. I now realize that with the storm's movement and mine, I was closing the gap between me and the storm at a rate of somewhere in excess of 110 mph! The storm was reported as moving at 55 mph, and it was easily that. So I ditched the I-25 plan and instead made a couple stops on the frontage road, near the turnoff for El Rancho de las Golandrinas. The storm displayed some beautifully menacing structure as it surged toward me:

I had been hoping for a chance to see and photograph a haboob, but the wind and rain were too co-located for that. But the structure of the storm made up for that. As it got closer I tried to backtrack a little east, but the storm was moving faster than I could, so I let it move over me near the intersection of 599 and 14. It hit with intense wind and rain, along with occasional CG lightning. The peak gust at the Santa Fe airport, a few miles north of my location was 56 mph., and occurred around 6:30, almost exactly an hour after the peak gust at the Albuquerque Sunport of 60 mph. Those airports are more than 50 miles apart, and it took the storm only an hour to traverse that distance! I would guess that the gusts at my location were similar to what was measured at the Santa Fe airport.

Here is a short video clip of the wind and rain I encountered at my loation:

After the storm passed my location, it got two more SVR warnings, and driving back up route 599, the rainfall became so intense that I decided to exit the highway and wait a few minutes until the core was well past me. There was some CG lightning that was pretty close, but I did not manage to capture any bolts. The last of the 4 SVR warnings the storm got extended all the way up to the Taos area, but once the storm got into the mountains, it weakened quickly, and that warning was cancelled.

Total chase distance for the day: approximately 295 miles (260 miles for Chase 1 and 35 miles for Chase 2)

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