Heavy Snow — Southern Sangre De Cristo Mountains Above 9500 Feet, New Mexico

2016-01-25 to 2016-01-26 · Southern Sangre De Cristo Mountains Above 9500 Feet, New Mexico

Event narrative

SNOTEL on the east slope of the southern exposure of the Sangre de Cristos Mountains reported a whopping 18 inches. Other areas across the mountains reported 3 to 7 inches.

Wider weather episode

A large scale upper level storm system digging into the southern Rockies combined with deep, easterly, upslope flow over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico to produce very heavy snowfall. Strong upslope flow into the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from near Angel Fire south to Gason and Las Vegas produced intense snowfall rates during the evening of the 25th through sunrise on the 26th. Isolated locations around Gascon, Ledoux, and Chacon picked up 20 to 30 inches of snowfall. Lighter snowfall impacted areas farther south and east. However, amounts still averaged 4 to 8 inches and difficult travel was reported. Most folks noted heavy wet accumulations so impacts did not occur for too long after the snow ended.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 609631. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.