A heavy-precipitation supercell formed near a warm-front/dryline triple point and rampaged east-southeastward for several hours just north of the front, a storm of the sort I informally call “ice machines” and “north Texas stormzillas” for obvious reasons. This supercell laid down a historic swath of severe to giant hail, never to be forgotten by all who observed it first-hand. I got in its path between Bowie and Decatur, then scooted along in its path, before finding an ideally oriented car-wash overhang for shelter in Denton. Beneath the track of the vault, I thought I would see some monster hail. The storm already hurled hailstones larger than baseballs before my ultimately ill-timed sampling attempt during an apparent relative minimum, and would later. That size minimum over me was fortunate, for most of Denton was spared the worst destruction. Still, these were not trivial hailstones; they could and did crack windshields and strip trees. The great variety of shapes, layers and opacities of specimens falling from one core, on one city lot, was amazing. This shot only shows some of the vast diversity of hail forms seen at similar sizes.
Denton TX (11 Apr 16) Looking down
33.2302, -97.1538Fallen Assortment
A heavy-precipitation supercell formed near a warm-front/dryline triple point and rampaged east-southeastward for several hours just north of the front, a storm of the sort I informally call “ice machines” and “north Texas stormzillas” for obvious reasons. This supercell laid down a historic swath of severe to giant hail, never to be forgotten by all who observed it first-hand. I got in its path between Bowie and Decatur, then scooted along in its path, before finding an ideally oriented car-wash overhang for shelter in Denton. Beneath the track of the vault, I thought I would see some monster hail. The storm already hurled hailstones larger than baseballs before my ultimately ill-timed sampling attempt during an apparent relative minimum, and would later. That size minimum over me was fortunate, for most of Denton was spared the worst destruction. Still, these were not trivial hailstones; they could and did crack windshields and strip trees. The great variety of shapes, layers and opacities of specimens falling from one core, on one city lot, was amazing. This shot only shows some of the vast diversity of hail forms seen at similar sizes.
Denton TX (11 Apr 16) Looking down
33.2302, -97.1538