At first, with the brown grass and abundance of icy ground cover, this scene conjured thoughts of midwinter more than mid-June. The grass had been parched by drought, however; and the frozen stuff was hail. Supercells are often notoriously prolific hail dumpers, especially on the high plains of Colorado. Some hail drifts in this area were over four inches deep. Almost as thick was the accumulation of mainly one to 1.5-inch-diameter hailstones on this gravel farm road, their melt puddles shimmering vividly in the late afternoon sunlight. An anticyclonic supercell dropped this load of hail, which we also photographed as it fell through a rainbow a couple miles away.
3 WSW Aroya CO (15 Jun 2) Looking WNW
38.8583, -103.141Hail Road
At first, with the brown grass and abundance of icy ground cover, this scene conjured thoughts of midwinter more than mid-June. The grass had been parched by drought, however; and the frozen stuff was hail. Supercells are often notoriously prolific hail dumpers, especially on the high plains of Colorado. Some hail drifts in this area were over four inches deep. Almost as thick was the accumulation of mainly one to 1.5-inch-diameter hailstones on this gravel farm road, their melt puddles shimmering vividly in the late afternoon sunlight. An anticyclonic supercell dropped this load of hail, which we also photographed as it fell through a rainbow a couple miles away.
3 WSW Aroya CO (15 Jun 2) Looking WNW
38.8583, -103.141