Cristos Coated
Rain Turns to Snow at High Elevations
Predictions of snow melted away with higherthan-expected temperatures Tuesday, but the nearby mountains still got a sleek coating of white.
“When the storm first came into our forecast models, we thought it would be colder,” said meteorologist Shawn Bennett with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. “But it has not produced as much snow because it’s slightly warmer than we anticipated. Temperatures across the state are in the 40s and 30s.”
Ski Santa Fe reported an inch-and-a-half of snow Tuesday, down from about 6 inches on Monday that had mostly melted away. Taos Ski Area reported about 4 inches of new snow at the top of the mountain; snow from earlier the month had mostly melted.
The weather service said Red River had reported 2 or 3 inches of snow Tuesday.
The moisture, which fell as a steady rain in Santa Fe early in the day, was related to a hailstorm that hit Saturday afternoon. “It’s all part of a severe storm track from the Pacific Northwest that started coming in on Saturday,” said Bennett. “It’s brought with it colder air, which is combined with moisture from the tropic, from Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico, to produce this rain and snow at higher elevations of 8,000 or 9,000 feet.”
In addition, he said, cold air from the Eastern Plains has worked its way into New Mexico.
“We had capped clouds over the Sangre de Cristos yesterday,” he said. “That was indicative of cold air filtering in from the Eastern Plains.”
By Friday or Saturday, the Weather Service is expecting a return to a normal warming trend, bringing temperatures to the low- to mid-70s.
