Strong to severe thunderstorms brought swaths of accumulating hail, including some large severe hail, to parts of the Texas Panhandle on 22 March 2019. Reports of hail up to 2.75″ in diameter were received by the National Weather Service. Photos and videos on social media showed hail covered roads and highways. IR satellite imagery showed the storms advancing across the Panhandle during the early evening (Fig 1).

Temperatures during the evening behind the storms dipped into the upper 30s, preventing much of the hail from melting. GOES visible and RGB imagery the next morning showed hail swaths still in place, extending from well southwest of Amarillo to northeast of Amarillo. The hail-covered surface appears as green in the Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB imagery, similar to snow (Fig 2). This RGB combines the 0.64 um VIS, 1.6 um snow/ice NIR, and 10.3 um IR to differentiate low clouds (light blue) from high clouds (red) from snow/ice-covered ground (green) from bare ground (darker blue). This differentiation is much more difficult when using any single band alone.

Bill Line