Monday, September 29, 2014

Albuquerque Festival Tent Flattened in Surprise Microburst; Wild Hailstorms Strike Denver

Nick Wiltgen and Jess Baker
Published: September 29,2014




 
A festival tent the size of a professional football field was flattened by an unexpected microburst in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Monday, injuring the festival's director in one of several powerful thunderstorms to rip across the southern Rockies and adjacent High Plains.

Albuquerque: Destructive Winds Strike Without Warning

The suspected microburst, a highly localized area of powerful winds, struck Albuquerque shortly after 2 p.m. MDT, according to witnesses as well as observations from the Albuquerque International Sunport. A gust of 62 mph was measured at the Sunport, the city's main commercial airport, at 2:06 p.m. MDT.
Just a few miles away, some 40 workers were preparing the site of the annual Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Festival, scheduled to open Friday in southeast Albuquerque. The site includes a large 400-by-100-foot tent where artists and vendors will set up shop during the two-weekend event.
Liz Gore is one of the festival organizers. She told weather.com that she had been taking a photo of the tent's top, with storm clouds on one side of it and sun shining on the other side. Suddenly, the wind picked up dramatically.
"All of a sudden the winds started blowing so hard and the rain was horizontal," she said. "The dirt from the infield was blowing so hard. We probably had 40 people or so working on the site and we ran for cover under the tent."
Within seconds, the tent gave way. "It just tipped and uprooted and everything crashed," Gore said. "There was literally no warning -- everything happened so fast."
"I would guess that [the winds] were 90 mph, at least," she estimated.
The Weather Channel has confirmed that no severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings had been issued by the National Weather Service in Albuquerque prior to the burst of wind, which hit the festival site at approximately 2:10 p.m. The NWS office issued a "significant weather advisory" for 55-mph wind gusts and half-inch-diameter hail at 2:14 p.m. for a "strong thunderstorm 7 miles southeast of Albuquerque" affecting eastern Bernalillo and northern Valencia counties.
"Most of us got knocked down by this gust of wind," Gore said. "I don't remember being hit by anything physically. But I remember looking up and a lot of guys were down on the ground as well. I don't know if a piece of the tent hit us or it was just the wind, it happened so fast."
"I don't have any injuries from anything hitting me," she said.
Her mother, Ruth Gore, was not as fortunate. Ruth Gore, the festival's director, was bleeding from the face. Liz Gore said hail began falling not long after she noticed her mother bleeding.
An ambulance took Ruth Gore to the hospital, where doctors feared internal injuries. By the time Liz Gore spoke to weather.com, her mother had been cleared of any internal injuries and was expected to be released from the hospital with stitches to her face wounds.
Liz Gore said she and her colleagues were fortunate. "Luckily no one was trapped beneath [the tent] or any of the poles."
She said the site gets a windstorm about every other year, usually from strong easterly winds that blow through the nearby Tijeras Canyon. But she said the festival's giant tent had never had a structural problem until Monday's storm.
Once the storm passed, Liz Gore waited for the fire department to remove the collapsed tent canvas from her car and retrieved her phone. She told weather.com that the photos she took -- featured in our storm slideshow below -- were taken only 30 to 40 minutes after the storm, but skies already looked pleasantly sunny by then.
She told us replacement parts for the tent have been ordered and are expected to arrive from Phoenix Tuesday. If that plan comes through, organizers hope to start the festival on time Friday, in tandem with the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta happening at the same time.
Tune to The Weather Channel Tuesday morning when the Gore family will tell their survival story on AMHQ with Sam Champion.

Denver: Rivers of Hail Strike Front Range

An impressive hail storm slammed into the Denver metropolitan area around 2 p.m. MDT, dropping hail as large as golf balls.
Photos posted to social media show what looked like snow, but was actually a thick sheet of hail covering highways and grassy areas. Denver's 9 News reports Cherry Creek schools delayed dismissing students because of the weather.
(MORE: Track the Severe Threat)
As the storms marched east, they congealed into a powerful squall line. A roof was blown off a house in Kit Carson, Colorado, at 6:20 p.m. MDT, according to law enforcement reports relayed to the National Weather Service office in nearby Goodland, Kansas.
A Weather Underground personal weather station in Hugo, Colorado, recorded a 76-mph wind gust at 5:49 p.m. MDT. Another weather observer in rural Cheyenne County, Colorado, reported an 84-mph gust to the National Weather Service at 6:10 p.m. MDT.
In New Mexico, an estimated 75-mph gust was reported in rural Harding County, while a 62-mph gust was reported earlier in the afternoon at Albuquerque International Sunport.
A tornado watch includes parts of northeast Colorado and western Nebraska. The watch is set to expire at 9 p.m. local time. The Denver metropolitan area has been removed from the watch.
A severe thunderstorm watch is also posted for 9 p.m. for portions of southern Colorado and eastern New Mexico into the extreme western Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. Please stay with weather.com for more on this developing weather story.

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