Week's third round of snowfall could be coming Sunday

Jan. 11—A snowstorm that passed through the northern part of New Mexico on Thursday and dropped about a half-inch of snow in the city was expected to clear out by Friday morning, but meteorologists said another storm system was forecast to arrive Sunday.

"It's a fast-moving storm from the north that might bring a little snow — maybe a half-inch in the Santa Fe area," said Scott Overpeck, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

What residents are going to feel, he said, is the below-freezing temperatures that will stick around through the weekend and into early next week.

"We're looking at it getting down to 8 or 9 degrees for a low and a high Friday in the upper 20s in Santa Fe," Overpeck said.

Days of low temperatures in the teens and single digits have prompted city officials to activate Code Blue protocols, authorizing the Santa Fe Fire Department's Alternative Response Unit to work with Consuelo's Place and the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete's Place to ensure homeless residents have a safe, warm place to go.

The city activated Code Blue protocols Jan. 5, Korina Lopez, executive director of Pete's Place, said earlier this week.

Overpeck said skies will remain clear Friday and Saturday before the next storm rolls in. Temperatures might rise into the 30s Saturday, but come Sunday, they're going to drop again.

Santa Feans are likely to wake up on the Monday holiday — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — to temperatures below 20. Residents could see temperatures below 10 degrees Tuesday morning.

It's possible the area will get "another reinforcing shot of colder air by the end of next week," Overpeck said, and another storm might come the weekend of Jan. 20-21.

Thursday's storm prompted the Taos Avalanche Center to issue an avalanche warning in an area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of the stretch between Arroyo Seco and Questa. Taos Ski Valley was expecting 7 inches from the storm and reported 26 inches of snowfall in the past eight days.

Ski Santa Fe hadn't yet updated its snowfall total for Thursday but reported 40 inches of new snow in the past week.