Thundersnow at Pajarito Ski Area, NM
March 13, 2020

by John Farley



While I was skiing at New Mexico's Pajarito Ski Area near Los Alamos the afternoon of March 13, 2020, I was treated to a wide variety of weather. I had dismised the idea of skiing that day because it would be too crowded with spring breakers at Ski Santa Fe and I thought the snow level would be so high that Pajarito would get mainly rain. But when I looked at the Pajarito webcam around mid-morning I could see that it was snowing there, so I changed my mind and decided to go skiing there. When I arrived there around noon, there was a mixture of rain and snow at the bottom, but once I was on the lift it was all snow within 100 vertical feet up. At this time, there was 3-4 inches of new wet snow at the top and a couple inches of what might be almost better described as new slush at the bottom. By the time I finished my first run, it was all nsow all the way to the bottom. Visibility was tough, though, due to the low cloud base that made it foggy at the top and the flat light and falling snow that reduced visibility everywhere. Within less than an hour of my arrival, though, the snow stopped and the sun came out. For about 5 or 10 minutes, as it turns out. But it was beautiful while the sun was out, with great visibility to enjoy the newly fallen snow. Here is a picture from this time:

Then it cloluded over again, with intermittent light snow for the next hour or so. By 2:20, I was tired from skiing in the heavy wet snow, and becoming concerned about the possibility of lightning. The sky had been darkening for a while, and the ordinary snow had changed over to snow pellets (graupel), a sure sign that the precipitation was convective. I decided to head for the lodge to take a break, or perhaps call it a day. About halfway down, though, I saw a flash of lightning, followed a few seconds later by a fairly loud roll of thunder. So the lightning was somewhere a little under a mile away. I got to the bottom as quickly as I could, and found the relative shelter of a small booth by one of the lodges that is used for ski race signups, etc. From there, I got my phone out in hope of catching some thundersnow on video. It did not take long! Soon there was another flash of lightning, brighter than the first one, and then almost immediately - less than a second later - a loud crash of thunder. This lightning was likely no farther away than 1/8 of a mile. In the video, I say "less than a quarter mile" but actually it was quite a bit less. Here is the video:

The storm then moved on as quickly as it arribved, and I decided to call it a day. The lifts were closed for 10 or 15 minutes because of the lightning, then reopened. But I was ready to call it a day. Per radar on my phone, another cell a litle later produced even more in the way of thundersnow to the west of the ski area in the Valles Caldera area - don't know whether any of that made it to the ski area or not, as I had left by then. But it certainly was an interesting weather day in the Jemez Mountains!

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