New Mexico Daily Snow

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By Julien Ross, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago January 31, 2023

The waiting game, and Kachina Peak stoke

Summary

A weak cold front late Tuesday will keep temperatures cold into Wednesday. The southern storm tracking across Mexico will bring light snow to the southern Mountains on Wednesday afternoon. A warming trend starts Thursday and on Friday we will see the warmest day in some time. All eyes are on the second week of February for a possible return of snow.

Update

A belated congratulations to Taos Ski Valley which opened Kachina Peak on Sunday, January 29th for hiking earn-your-turns stoke. Kachina also opened on Monday and again today, Tuesday, for hiking only. 

This season has been tricky for snowpack and no doubt a ton of avalanche mitigation work went into the opening of New Mexico's crown jewel of big mountains skiing and riding. Huge kudos to Taos ski patrol and their snow safety team!

The January 29th opening of Kachina Peak terrain was a week ahead of last season's opening on February 5th. In fact, a few readers have asked me how this season compares to last season so far.

A member of the meteorology community, Evan Fisher (@EFisherWX), actually just published this interesting map comparing 2021-2022 to 2022-2023 as of January 29th. 

Most of New Mexico has received more snowfall this season compared to last season as of January 29th. Not that last season was the bar we want to measure everything against but it is interesting nonetheless.

While we find ourselves in a dry pattern currently, let's hope the overall season trend continues and we can at least beat out last season.

On Tuesday, our southern storm is spinning over the northern part of Baja California and tracking eastward.

The visible satellite image above shows a large swath of low clouds and freezing fog over the eastern half of New Mexico thanks to a frigid cold air mass. The low stratus clouds and fog are dammed up along the central mountain chain and can be seen on Tuesday morning's Sandia Cam.

For the high country on Tuesday, it is a mostly blue bird day with a few patchy clouds but some gusty winds up high. The Summit Cam at Angel Fire below looking toward Wheeler Peak gives a nice snapshot of current conditions (on the live video version those three trees in the foreground are swaying pretty aggressively with wind gusts over 20 mph).

Later on Tuesday, a weak and dry cold front will slide through the northern mountains keeping temperatures very cold overnight. We could see more clouds and maybe an isolated snow flurry later Tuesday in the northern Sangres around Taos as this cold air moves through.

On Wednesday, the southern storm will whip up some modest precipitation in the southern mountains but the rest of the central mountain chain stays dry. Here is the forecast radar for 2 pm Wednesday.

Wednesday through Friday we will see a warming with Friday likely to be the warmest and calmest day we have seen in some time.

Looking into the extended forecast, we continue to see signs of a more active pattern in the second week of February. 

Thanks for reading!

I will check back in on Thursday.

JULIEN ROSS
[email protected]

Announcements

January snow means dynamic avalanche conditions

We are fortunate to have the Taos Avalanche Center to help make avalanche forecasts for the Land of Enchantment. Always be sure to check out the latest before heading into the backcountry.

And Taos Avalanche Center is again partnering with the best in the business for an awesome slate of courses this season in Taos and Santa Fe. Check out the details here.

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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