Happy spring forward!

Sunday morning totals hit the low range of the forecast for the northern mountains.

• 5” Angel Fire
• 4” Taos (2” overnight)
• 3” Ski Santa Fe
• 2” Pajarito 
• 1” Sipapu
• 0-1” Red River

Patchy on-and-off snow showers in the northern mountains on Sunday could produce a tad more snow but the storm is mostly over and there will even be sunshine on Sunday.

On Saturday I expressed skepticism and concern that the bullish global model ensembles, and even OpenSnow’s in-house numerical forecast algorithm that had double digits for Taos, were overcooked.

My less bullish take was because of too-warm temperatures hovering around freezing on Saturday even at 11,000 feet. We also missed the main storm energy that was more north over Colorado on Friday night and Saturday. On Saturday I watched moisture and precipitation signals on radar in the northern mountains but no snow on webcams. This is a telltale sign of temperatures being too warm.

A quick personal anecdote

My original title for this post was going to be something along the lines of “Bust.”

But a random inspirational experience this morning made me think again. 

I don’t often speak of my personal life but since it’s relevant to this story, I’ll mention that this past week my family and I had to move my 86-year-old dad into hospice and memory care in Santa Fe. It has been very sad and difficult. My grief was carrying over into my attitude around snow forecasting and I’ve been feeling a little negative lately.

So this morning as I was skinning up at Santa Fe with the thoughts of "this storm busted" running through my mind, I ran into a snowboard instructor coming down Thunderbird Trees an hour before the mountain was set to open.

I asked them with a sour tinge in my voice "dust on crust?".

They said, "No, beauty on beauty."

The answer threw me for a moment. I had to pause and take it in. And a paradigm shift followed.

For the rest of my skin up and the numerous laps with soft turns that followed, I experienced everything as beauty on beauty. Even the turns with some icy crust underneath felt joyous.

So thank you to the anonymous snowboard instructor for the reminder of all that we have to be grateful for, even on days when the storm busts.

Better storm coming 

We have been eyeing this mid-March storm for some time now and it continues to trend nicely.

I will devote my Monday post entirely to this upcoming storm. For now, I will say pencil in Thursday for storm skiing and powder and Friday for more powder.

And another storm is possible around March 19-20. 

Let’s finish this season in style.

¡Viva la nieve!

JULIEN ROSS
[email protected]

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)