New Mexico Daily Snow

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By Julien Ross, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago April 25, 2022

Fires, snow, and reader Q&A: Dec. wind storm and Jemez snowfall

Summary

After tremendous snowfall in the middle portion of the season, April has been dry and windy, and as a result wildfires have erupted. In this post, I address the final round of reader questions related to the Jemez Mountains and snowfall, and the damaging wind event on December 15th, 2021 that leveled large swaths of forest at Taos Ski Valley. My next post will be the final season wrap-up.

Short Term Forecast

It has been a dreadfully dry April for the Land of Enchantment and in the past week numerous wildfires have erupted in the northern mountains and lower grasslands. It has actually been a great April for snowfall just to our north with a more classic La Niña track returning. Here is the snowfall map for the last 14 days. 

The only snow in New Mexico above near Raton actually fell earlier today on Monday morning. This was the scene on Raton Pass around 8am on Monday. 

Unfortunately, the precipitation missed the four largest active wildfires in New Mexico. The Cerro Pelado fire in the lower left is in the southern Jemez Mountains. The Calf Canyon fire and Hermits Peak fire just merged in the middle of the map in the southeastern Pecos Wilderness and adjacent national forest. And the Cooks Peak fire to the north of Mora in the eastern flanks of the Sangre de Cristos.

You can track the fires at https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/ or https://nmfireinfo.com/. Also, don't forget the smoke forecast tool on both OpenSnow and OpenSummit map functions as we head into the summer. Here is the surface smoke forecast for Tuesday showing the fires flaring up. And winds are supposed to worsen later in the week.

Reader Questions and Answers

Most of the end-of-season questions sent in were related to La Niña (past and future) and season snowpack compared to average. I addressed many of these topics in my recent season snowfall reflection post.

A few other interesting questions came in and I try to answer these here.

Question 1: Jemez Mountains Snowfall Disparities
The snow predictions you post always seem to show a snow concentration on the west side of the Jemez, vaguely near Cuba. Where exactly is that? Should there be a ski area there? Is there a good opportunity for backcountry skiing there? 

I too have noticed that liquid precipitation and snowfall forecast maps often show a sweet spot just to the west and a bit north of Pajarito. Below is a random example from a February 2021 storm and we can see a bullseye of 1+" of liquid to the west-northwest of Pajarito, compared to only .2 to .4" around Pajarito. And the other decent amounts are in the San Juans of southwestern Colorado and the Tusas Mountains around Chama.

If we take a closer look we see that the bullseye is along the western edge of the Jemez Mountains near the San Pedro Parks Wilderness (read about this wilderness area here, scroll down to #2 in link). The Forest Service mentions this wilderness area averages 35 inches of annual liquid precipitation which puts it on par with even the higher elevation Pecos Wilderness and Sangre de Cristos.

Historic SNOTEL data confirms that this is on average a snowier area of the Jemez compared to the eastern side near Pajarito. The Vacas Locas SNOTEL site near this western side of the Jemez by the Pedro Parks Wilderness shows a median peak snowpack of about 10.4 inches of liquid equivalent.

Compared to 8.4 inches of liquid equivalent at Quemazon SNOTEL site closer to Pajarito on the eastern side of the Jemez.

The logical meteorological explanation for this discrepancy is that the most common storm tracks in the winter bring southwest winds that graze the western edge of the Jemez. The San Pedro Parks Wilderness is well positioned on the western flank with higher terrain to produce orographic lift.

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the area or terrain to answer whether there is good backcountry skiing or riding there. However, the topo maps of the area show that the highest elevations around 10,000ft are broad expanses of flat meadow-like terrain and some low-angle, with more angled terrain in the 7,000 to 9,500-foot range. 

These factors do not make for a good ski resort location to answer that part of the question. But If anyone has intel on backcountry in this area please let me know!

Question #2: December 15th, 2021 Extreme and Damaging Wind Event
I would like to understand more about the wind event in Taos in December, as the effects were devastating. Is this more jet stream related or just isolated low pressure moving in, indirectly, from the jet stream? Big wind events (i.e. tornados) are common in the middle of the country during the Spring; however, I wonder how the Sangre de Cristo Range microclimate(s) produce these events in winter. 

The December 15, 2021 wind storm is definitely one that will be remembered for years to come with an extensive path of damage. This included flipped planes at the Santa Fe Airport and the falling of a large historic pine tree in front of the Santa Fe Cathedral before the storm hit Taos and Red River.

The short answer to the question is that this wind event was a combination of an unusually strong jet stream overhead and a strong fast-moving cold front that produced a line of severe storms along the leading edge of the front.

The models did an amazing job of predicting these damaging winds. On December 14th I posted about it. This was the satellite image the day before showing the approaching cold front and dipping trough in the jet stream.

This was the Colorado Avalanche Information Center's wind forecast for Taos which nailed the timing and strength of hurricane force winds peaking between 6am and 8am.

As the cold front came through it produced a bowing arch of storms. Below was the radar signature that morning as it passed over the Sangre de Cristos. This same bowing line went on to produce an unprecedented and historic "derecho" in Iowa.

These storms along the cold front combined with the jet stream overhead produced damaging winds and downbursts in the town of Taos before impacting Taos Ski Valley. Here is the NWS damage survey in the Taos area.

Given the damage in Santa Fe and Taos and extreme wind reports at all elevations, we know that this overall wind event was not an isolated Sangre de Cristo event or produced by a Taos Ski Valley microclimate as the reader's question mentioned.

However, there might be some interesting microclimate and microgeography hypotheses to consider when asking why the trees fell where they did at Taos Ski Valley. Here is a picture of the tree damage courtesy of OpenSnow reader, Michael Murray.

We know that winds over 100mph were measured on Kachina Peak early Wednesday morning. I captured some webcam footage on Highline Ridge that morning which look insane.

The majority of the trees that fell at Taos Ski Valley were on the eastern side of the valley at relatively lower elevations before the steep ascent up the Wheeler Peak ridgeline. It is possible that in addition to the already hurricane-force winds, there were downsloping wind dynamics at play where the winds accelerated coming down Kachina Peak into the valley. The geography of the valley may have also forced the winds into a narrowing that exacerbated acceleration and concentrated where the trees fell. 

I am not an expert on this topic so the above thoughts are purely speculation. My guess is that research papers will be written on the Taos tree event so we should keep an eye out in the future.

Extended Forecast

While we are here, let's take a peek at the next 3 weeks. One word answer for the Land of Enchantment: dry. Ugh. This persistent northern storm track is really awful given the already bad fire conditions and ongoing fires in New Mexico. 

Thanks for reading and I will be posting the 2021-2022 season wrap-up later this week.

JULIEN ROSS
[email protected]

Announcements

New Mexico Geography Key

Northern Mountains
→ Red River, Taos Ski Valley (north side of northern mountains - Sangre de Cristos)
→ Angel Fire (northeast 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)

About Our Forecaster

Julien Ross

Forecaster

Julien was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was introduced to skiing at age 7 through the public schools subsidized ski program at Ski Santa Fe. It was love at first turn and Julien has been chasing deep powder and good mogul lines ever since. Julien grew up fascinated by weather and studied physical geography with a focus on meteorology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

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