Winter Weather — Curry County, New Mexico

2011-12-25 · Curry County, New Mexico

Event narrative

A 4-year old girl died after her family's SUV lost traction on an icy Highway 209 north of Clovis and overturned. The girl's mother and sister suffered minor injuries.

Wider weather episode

A strong upper level low pressure system that slowly moved south over Arizona and then over southern New Mexico brought copious amounts of snow to the state. Some of the areas that were hit the hardest included the same areas that were blanketed by snow from the previous storm. However, this time, it was the southeast portion of the state, rather than the northeast portion of the state, that was hit hard. Another cold front moved down the plains and through the gaps of the central mountain chain on the 22nd, and snow quickly developed across the western two-thirds of the state. One to two feet of snow was common across the east slopes of the Sandia and Manzano Mountains as well as the west central and southwest mountains. As the low slowly moved east across southern portions of the state, snow was heaviest from the south central mountains eastward to the Texas state line. These areas saw between 6 and 12 inches of snow at lower elevations, while well over a foot of fresh snow was reported across the high terrain.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 352912. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.