11 a.m. to 1 p.m. - Around 11 a.m., a strong band of precipitation was located along the AZ-NM border. Individual cells within this band were moving NE or NNE, with the band shifting east. This precipitation was associated with a strong Pacific cold front moving across Arizona and New Mexico to the south of deep low pressure in the Four Corners area. This system produced widespread stormy weather coast to coast over the Thanksgiving Day weekend. My wife and I had some errands to run, so we ecided to take care of them before the storms arrived in Santa Fe.

12:45-1 p.m. - We were home from errands, and I was eating Allsups burritos (!) I had picked up on the way home. Radar was now showing heavy rain and snow squalls alligned from ABQ to the Jemez Mountains. Lighting strikes were showing up on the lightning tracker near Cuba and in the Jemez Mountains nearby. I figured the cell producing this lightning would likely track north of Santa Fe. There was ohe other bolt well to the south, but nothing in the part of the precipitation that was approaching Santa Fe

1:02 - The weather app on my phone alarmed for a Special Weather Statement (SPS) from the Albuquerque NWS. This alert was for moderate to heavy rain and snow along a "strong pacific cold front" being tracked by radar, accompanied by 50-55 mph winds. The alert included both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. I looked again at the lightning tracker, and now there were several strikes in the SW fringes of the Santa Fe metro. This meant there would be a good potential for thundersnow anywhere high enough to get snow. The precipitation would likely start as rain in Santa Fe (snow level was predicted to initially be around 8000 feet), though it might change to snow even in town. But the chance of thundersnow would be better up a little higher. Time to finish that burrito and get going! I decided to try a thundersnow intercept along the road to Ski Santa Fe. With the snow level predicted to initially be around 8000 feet, I figured the p-type would be snow somewhere between Ten Thousand Waves and Hyde State Park along the aforementioned road.

1:10 - Out the door. Moderate rain quickly became heavier; I saw the first flash of lightning about 2 blocks into the chase.

1:20 - Rain began to mix with snow near Ten Thousand Waves as the temperature fell from the mid-40s to the upper 30s. Soon, with the p-type trending to more snow than rain, I saw another bright flash of lightning, and and decided to start taking video through the windshield with my cell phone.

1:25 - Beginning of the 17 minutes of video that I got, edited down to about 6 in the linked Youtube video. P-type at this time was a mix of rain and snow, but rapidly becoming more snow than rain, with snow beginning to accumulate along the sides of my wihdshield where the wiper blades pushed it over to. Another bright flash of lightning occurred, with loud thunder a second or two later. I got this one on video! A couple minutes later, I encountered a brief spurt of hail, then soon after another flash of lightning. Quickly, the P-type went from a mix of rain/hail/snow to mostly graupel (snow pellets), and then it turned to all ordinary snow in a minute or two. I finally managed to find a safe place to stop, and and soon I got a loud rumble of thunder with wind driven snow. In this spot over 10 minutes or so, I got 3 rumbles of thunder in increasingly heavy snow. The second rumble was too low for my phone to pick up, but I did again get the third one, though it came as 2 cars were passing so it is mainly audible on the video between the two cars. This is at approximately the 5:40 point in the video. After this, the thunder ended, but snow got even heavier, with visbility down to 1/8 mile or less.

1:42 - I stopped the video as there was by then no more thunder, and headed up a little farther looking for a good place to turn around. Snow was very heavy and wind-driven at this time, and visibility poor. I turned around at Hyde State Park, a mile or two past where I had stopped to get the video. Visibility at this time was 1/8 mile or less, and the roads were snow covered. Traffic was also heavy, as lots of skiers were heading back from Ski Santa Fe, where conditions were surely very nasty and probably the lifts were stopped at least for a while due to the lightning. I headed back to town in heavy snow, with lighter snow siill falling in town when I get back after 2 p.m. About 1/2 inch of snow accumulated in town, but there was considerably more in the mountains even by the time snow ends in town around 3 or so. But snow continued longer in the mountains.

Ski Santa Fe got 6 inches during the day, adding to the 6 inches that fell overnight the night before and 13" the previous day, for a 48-hour total of an impressive 25 inches. So this was an excellent early-season storm for the mountains, adding on to other substantial snowfalls in the last 10 days.

And it turns out that the thunderstorm I observed actually met severe criteria, with a gust of 58 mph recorded 6 miles WNW of Glorieta at 1:31 p.m. That would have put it roughly 6 miles south of where I recorded the thundersnow video. So my second severe thundersnow experience of 2019, and not very far from where I experienced the other one back in March at Ski Santa Fe; that one produced 1+-inch hail around Glorieta.

Here is the video:

I am happy to have gotten this video, as I thought for a while after I got back that I had somehow managed to lose it. The file did not show up in the DCIM folder of my phone, but eventually with the computer I managed to find it in a rather well-hidden photo and video "trashcan" file. I have no idea how it got there, but am very grateful for having been able to recover it.

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