Hail in New Mexico, May 29, 1996

Thunderstorms formed in the mid afternoon along a stationary front that stretched from west of Hobbs to near Midland to San Angelo. Other storms formed farther south along the dry line which extended from the front (approximately in the southeast corner of New Mexico) to the south toward the Rio Grande.Storms for much of the afternoon were largely of a splitting variety with only a few severe reports. Near the front, the right-splits were dominating, whereas farther south the left-split storms were dominant.Around 7pm CDT storms were becoming better organized including one storm in Gaines County that dropped baseball size hail. As the evening progressed numerous outflow boundaries were generated that impeded the ability for storms to sustain their organization. Some reports of damaging outflow winds were recorded, but hail size subsided. Also during the evening, storms were no longer splitting--movements were rather chaotic with some storms moving in the mean flow while others followed the criss-crossed outflow boundaries.