Happy Sunday to everyone. Before we jump in let's give a shout-out to Angel Fire and Red River who celebrate their closing day today March 19th. 

Both mountains are going out with a bang with powder and a stellar snowpack for the closing weekend.

On Saturday we expected light snow showers in the afternoon and a few mountains ended up scraping together some modest accumulation;

4" Sipapu
2-3" Ski Apache
2" Angel Fire
1" Pajarito
1" Ski Santa Fe

Now on Sunday, we are in a brief bluebird intermission between storm cycles.

Starting Monday we could see 6 straight days of snow with deep totals by Wednesday and Thursday. I discuss the details below but first, we have a bit of housekeeping from the March 15-17 storm.

Here is the "keep me honest" report for my original Wednesday through Friday forecast. All of the Sangre resorts overperformed nicely which we always love to see. Given the wide margins of error that we discussed in the days leading up to the storm, I will happily take the 4.2" average variance!

Thanks to everyone who sent in videos and photos from the epic storm cycle! Here are a few photos and I will try to post more on Monday!

In terms of the overall river basin snowpack, we are killing it. Even the southern mountains are just below 100% of normal after being at 50% just two weeks ago.

A significant storm cycle starts Monday afternoon and goes through Thursday

After a brief respite on Sunday, it is game-on again.

Snow should start in the northern mountains on Monday afternoon and by Tuesday morning we should have enough for the first powder day of the cycle.

Moderate snow continues on Tuesday and then really ramps up overnight into Wednesday for another powder day. Moderate snow continues for another likely powder day on Thursday.

Here is the OpenSnow downscaled GFS Ensemble for Sipapu which is fairly representative of all northern mountains with 1.5" to 2" of liquid precipitation (or 1-2+ feet of snow) from Monday through Thursday.

Bottomline

• We should have powder days on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
• Deep totals of 1-2+ feet across the northern mountains by Thursday morning.
• Light snow and cold temperatures could continue on Friday and Saturday keeping conditions soft and winter-like. 
• We will be running out of adjectives to describe how good this week is going to be coming directly on the heels of the March 15-17 storm cycle.

¡Viva la nieve!

Thanks for reading and I will be back on Monday.

JULIEN ROSS
[email protected]

Taos Avalanche Center for all of your backcountry forecasts

Always consult TAC for the latest avalanche forecasts!

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)