Chama residents braced themselves for more snow after receiving 13 inches of the white stuff Tuesday from a storm that began Monday afternoon. The National Weather Service in Albuquerque had issued a winter storm watch for the Chama area Wednesday (12/24) through Friday with the possibility of an additional 12 to 20 inches of snow.
“It’s a pretty active pattern,” Ken Widelski, of the Service, said.
Española had received 2.5 inches of snow Tuesday from the same storm and was also under a winter storm watch with an additional three inches of snow possible from Wednesday (12/24) through Friday.
The storm should begin breaking up after Friday, followed by cold nighttime temperatures. The low for Chama Saturday is forecast to be from minus 5 to 10 degrees, with highs from the mid-20s to the upper 30s under mostly cloudy skies.
The low temperature in Española is forecast to be from 5 to 15 degrees Saturday with high temperatures in the mid-to-high 40s, according to Service employee Raymond Jojola.
“We have two or three feet on the ground,” Angie Manzanares, wife of Escalante boys basketball coach Milnor Manzanares, said. “It’s kinda bad, but not as bad as last year yet. People are starting to shovel snow off their roofs because they’re worried after what happened last year.”
In February, Chama received three-to-four feet of snow and the weight of the snow collapsed the roof of the village’s only grocery store.
Vivian Trujillo at the Hand Artes Gallery in Truchas said things were worse in Truchas than in Española.
“We’re in Alaska, you guys are in Hawaii,” she said. “The snow was up to my knees this morning.”
She estimated the snow depth was about a foot and that the wind was blowing the light snow from the open fields around Truchas on to the roads.
At Mesa Poleo between Gallina and Coyote, Edith Martinez said her husband, Philip, was out plowing snow.
“We had 11 inches last week and most of it was still on the ground,” she said. “We probably had another 11 inches, so we’re up to our ears in snow.”
The wind was also a big problem in the Gallina and Coyote area.
“We probably have four-foot drifts in some areas and no snow at all in others,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
Thelma Chavez of the Coyote Ranger District of Santa Fe National Forest said State Road 96 from the junction with Highway 84 through Cuba was snowpacked and icy. Wind gusts up to 40 miles-per-hour were reported by Eddie Campos in El Rito, where he said they had eight inches of light snow and the drifts were piling the snow up on plowed roadways.
“They’re plowing as best they can,” Campos said. “The wind is making it not effective.”