The weather is getting truly unruly, with extreme heat sparking fires that smoked out New York, roads melting in the Tour de France, and flooding hitting regions across the U.S. Now, drivers in New Mexico have had a new biblical weather event to deal with: rivers of hail flooding their roads.
According to weather reports from Yahoo News, the state of New Mexico was hit with a severe storm this weekend, which pummeled cities including Las Vegas, which lies to the east of Santa Fe. As well as rain and wind, the storm also brought a downpour of hail.
The hail fell on the state last week, bringing “several inches” of ice down on the region over the course of a single day. According to Yahoo News, the downpour of hail was so bad that the city had to call on a fleet of snowplows to begin the cleanup operation.
Video of the storm’s aftermath has been doing the rounds on social media and shows the bizarre sight of a river of hail stones flowing down a street. In footage shared by KRQE chief meteorologist Grant Tosterud, cars can be seen forging a path through the hail, leaving waves behind them as they drive along the flooded road.
The frozen stones are pilled up in the center of the lane, while a good few inches of meltwater fills the sides of the path as cars drive through. Despite the shocking sites of the video above, local news outlet KOAT 7 reports that there was “no major damage” as a result of the storm.
Meteorologists that Yahoo News spoke with were keen to point out that if you find yourself in a bizarre weather event like this, the best thing to do is turn around and go home. The site explained that just 12 inches of water is enough to carry most cars off, and added that drivers should “never bypass barriers on a flooded road.”