A winter storm struck Northern New Mexico Monday, causing school delays throughout Rio Arriba County. The Jemez Mountain, Chama Valley, Mesa Vista, Dulce and Española School Districts all were on a two-hour delay Monday night. Chama Valley and Dulce later canceled school Tuesday morning as snow continued to fall.
The National Weather Service reported 13 inches of snow on the ground in Chama Tuesday at 7 a.m. with a temperature of 16 degrees. The forecast was for an additional 1 to 3 inches of snow and the forecast low was 4 degrees, according to Raymond Jojola of the service in Albuquerque.
“Officially, we had 12.5 inches this morning, but we’ve probably got a foot and a half now,” Scott Flury of KZRM-FM radio station in Chama said 12 p.m. Tuesday. “You can barely see across the street and the wind is making drifts of 2 to 3 feet. It’s a mess.”
The snowfall was heavier in the mountains around Chama. A Natural Resources Conservation Service measuring site at Chamita at 8,400 feet measured 16 inches of new snow north of Chama Monday night and an additional 4 inches by 6 a.m. Tuesday. A measuring site at Hopewell between Tierra Amarilla and Tres Piedras at 10,000 feet reported 16 inches of new snow Monday at midnight and an additional 7 inches had fallen from 12 a.m. until 11 a.m. Tuesday at Hopewell. The total snow depth at Hopewell was 44 inches.
The snowfall led to the closure of three highways Tuesday in Rio Arriba County, according to Karyn Lujan, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which includes Rio Arriba County: US Highway 285 was closed from Tres Piedras to the Colorado border at 3 a.m. US Highway 64 between Tres Piedras and Tierra Amarilla was closed at 6 a.m. State Highway 17 was closed from Chama to the Colorado border at 9:30 a.m.
Abiquiú Lake had about 3 inches of snow. The cold temperatures and wind made for miserable conditions Tuesday.
“It’s certifiably nasty out there,” Eric Garner, supervisory ranger at Abiquiú, said. “We have gusts up to 35 miles per hour and the temperature’s been hovering right around freezing all day.”
Snowfall was not measured at Española, but it was reported by the Weather Service that Española had received 1.2 inches of precipitation Tuesday. A mixture of rain and snow fell throughout Monday night in Española.