2009.04.30
Meadows turned white by hail in Floyd County
This snowy field in Floyd County (for bigger version, click here) isn't a snowy field at all. No, that's hail, two hours after it had fallen at Indian Valley ... so there was even more before this shot was taken by occasional Weather Journal blog commenter "Indian Valley John." If you look closely, you can even see some hail fog at ground level ... moisture condensing in air cooled by the fallen and melting hail. A slow-moving storm combined with a low freezing level (just below 11,000 feet) caused large amounts of mostly small hail to be dumped on a portion of Floyd County Wednesday afternoon. Up to 5 inches of hail accumulated at some spots near Willis and Indian Valley.
So, while some of you didn't even see rain in your back yard (most of the Roanoke Valley), others not far away had quite a stormy show. That will be the pattern the next few days, as spotty showers and storms occur with a flip-flopping front waving across the area and a series of disturbances. More organized action may occur by the weekend.
Click here for a few more photos from Indian Valley John, all taken about 2 hours after the hail storm:
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Everything else being equal...an 11K freeze level is kinda high for hail to survive to the surface. The more important parameter is the height of 'wet bulb zero'...which in this case was ~8200'
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/09043000_OBS/
SSD
Comment by Sirius the Star Dog — April 30, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
Good point, Sirius. Especially in a situation like this where we didn't have extremely violent updrafts producing huge stones that could survive a greater degree of melting. Though it's also true that Floyd County's higher elevation allowed more of the hail to make it than would have into the Roanoke Valley.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — April 30, 2009 @ 4:27 pm