San Miguel County Chase (April 28, 2009)

The first chase of the season, and fortunately it ended up being in our backyard (relatively). Two areas looked promising: south towards Roswell/Tucumcari and north of Santa Rosa. The storm conditions looked better to the south, but we decided to head to the Santa Rosa area due to the massive road construction we hit on 285 that ate up about an hour of time (ah, our stimulus $$$ at work!). Both storms were t-warned, but the warning was taken off of the southern storm (lucky us!). Our storm was moving slowly (about 20 mph). We had to go almost totally by visual as data signals were sparse at best. The storm had one of the fastest rotations I have ever seen. Low clouds were wrapped up in the base -- strong inflow. The storm may have been undercut by cold air, but it was a spinner! About 10-20 miles of hail and hail fog. No tornado, but a beautiful storm nonetheless...