Saturday's sunrise from the Sandia Peak cam is a portent of things to come over the next five or six days: dry, mild, spring conditions with plenty of sun, occasional gusty winds, and some periodic high clouds.

Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday a weak disturbance could trigger a few light snow showers but no real accumulation is expected in New Mexico through Thursday.

The next chance of a meaningful storm will be March 12-15 which I discuss below in the extended forecast.

Snowpack Update
Here is a check-in our statewide and local snowpack heading into March and meteorological spring.

In January I posted an in-depth analysis of La Niña and the 2020-2021 season which has been mostly classified as a moderate La Niña year. We zoomed in on a historical climate data map of New Mexico from 15 past moderate La Niña seasons dating back to 1903 courtesy of climatologist, Brian Brettschneider.

The local nuances in New Mexico since 1903 for moderate La Niñas is fascinating, with the Taos County portion of the northern Sangres highlighted in green above (Taos Ski Valley, Red River) able to achieve 100 to 110% of average precipitation. Whereas things change dramatically as you head south. The middle and southern Sangres (Sipapu, Ski Santa Fe), the Jemez (Pajarito), Sandias, and Sacramentos (Ski Apache) all decline dramatically from normal in the 15 similar years since 1903. Also noted is that the San Juans of southwestern Colorado manage fairly normal seasons in moderate La Niñas.

As of early March, the 2020-2021 season continues to follow the general historical climate record with the Taos County portion of the northern Sangres the only areas at or above normal.

Here is the snowpack status for Red River, slightly above average. *Note: the graphs below for each resort are calculated from SNOTEL mountain weather stations and are not compiled from official resort measurements. We use weather stations to track snowpack because they update automatically and provide consistent measurements over many decades.

And Taos Ski Valley has held steady through the season so far with an average snowpack.

Angel Fire is in the northern Sangres but it's position on the eastern flank missed a few storms this season that hit Taos and Red River, so it's snowpack is below normal, but not as significantly as mountains further south.

Sipapu, being in the middle portion of the Sangres, benefitted from being slightly closer to the more northern storm tracks in this La Niña season, but is still moderately below average.

The situation gets worse as we get further south with Pajarito, Ski Santa Fe, and Sandia Peak all between 50% and 60% of normal snowpack.

For the southern mountains around Ski Apache the snowpack situation is dire and grave. The 2020-2021 season is currently on track to match the historical minimum. The black line below is 2020-2021 snowpack and it is currently touching the straight red line along the horizontal axis which is the lowest on record going back 30 years (1981).

There is no way to sugarcoat the situation statewide when we look at the overall river drainage status. 

The current drought monitor for New Mexico ranges from Severe to Exceptional drought statewide.

Sorry to be a downer but the situation is real in New Mexico. As we root for storms and powder days over the next 6 weeks, we can also pray that the snow gods deliver moisture and precipitation for our parched Land of Enchantment.

Speaking of rooting for storms, we could see a cut-off low track across the southwest between March 12 and 15.

The GFS Ensemble has the storm arriving sooner. Here is the GFS scenario on Thursday night with the area of storminess centered over southern Arizona.

The European Ensemble shows a slower scenario with the area of storminess still off the coast of Southern California on Thursday night.

But timing aside, the hopeful news is that both major model ensembles show a storm heading toward the southwest during the March 12-15 timeframe. 

The same ensemble forecasts for snowfall between March 12 and 15 show that the storms could track in a northeastern direction, such that New Mexico may not receive a direct hit and greater precipitation totals are to our north. It is simply too soon to speculate. But signals currently point to a track more favoring the northern mountains.

Thanks for reading and I will post again on Monday. Have a great weekend carving up some fun spring snow.

JULIEN ROSS
[email protected] 

NEW OpenSnow Map Feature: Cloud Cover Map Layer

This new map overlay provides cloud cover forecasts for the next 18 hours by clicking the “Maps” tab and selecting the “Cloud Cover” overlay.

For the OpenSnow iOS app, make sure you’re updated to version 3.5.6 and beyond.

For the OpenSnow Android app, make sure you’re updated to version 3.5.6 and beyond.

Cloud Cover Forecast → OpenSnow.com/map

New Mexico Geography Key

Northern Mountains
→ Red River, Taos Ski Valley, Angel Fire (north side of northern mountains - Sangre de Cristos)
→ Sipapu (middle of the northern mountains - Sangre de Cristos)
→ Ski Santa Fe (south side of the northern mountains - Sangre de Cristos)
→ Pajarito (southwest side of the northern mountains - Jemez)

Central Mountains
→ Sandia Peak (Sandias)
→ Mt. Taylor backcountry (San Mateos)

Southern Mountains
→ Ski Apache (Sacramentos)
→ Ski Cloudcroft (Sacramentos)