July 30th, 2006, 4:27-5:15 PM: Heavy rain and a dark western sky (so dark, it looked like a cloudy morning outside)...rain starts falling...and in five minutes, my street was beyond curb-full flood stage. The rain gauge that my neighbor had (since I didn't obtain mine until January 2007) recorded 2.7" rainfall. No hail fell, but the winds hit about 60 mph at times (though no warning except Flash Flood was issued).
October 11th, 2008, 1:30-2:15 PM: Powerful cold front with plenty of moisture ahead of it was making its way through central and northern New Mexico. What started out as a 30% thunderstorm forecast became a 40% severe thunderstorm forecast. Within minutes of hearing the weather radio go off, I looked out the window and saw this ominous dark mass moving ENE...rained 1.2" in just 30 minutes, along with golf ball sized hail and 70 mph winds that knocked loose the water feed pipe to the cooler. Another severe storm behind it blew through as well, dumping .75" of rain in just 20 minutes, along with marble sized hail for about five minutes.
The few most significant severe weather that I can remember up here in Albuquerque:
June 28, 2006, sunset: rain for an hour, large hail (golfball to hen egg) and 60-70 mph winds...all in one hour.
September 2002: tornado warning issued because a funnel cloud was reported about two miles to the NE of where my house was. It moved over us, got really, really windy, then it rained for about five minutes and died. I was in 5th grade and was freaking out!
June 2007: severe weather begin at around noon, went past 4 PM before the skies cleared. Tornado reported near I-25 about 25-30 miles N of Albuquerque.
All I got around my house was dark stormy skies and wind. No friggin' rain.
I have pictures of some dark skies during one 4th of July celebration, but I've seemed to have lost those. Dammit.