A cold storm system dropped into the borderland from the north late Thursday into Friday morning. Just before this storm system moved in a strong cold from had moved in from the east. The combination of the two coming together was going to bring a wintry mess in the days before Christmas. With the cold front alone some areas of west El Paso saw gusts of 50 miles per hour!

With the cold air in place Thursday overnight and the storm moving into the area, any precipitation that would fall would be in the form of snow. And sure enough we saw moderate snow begin to break out in the Las Cruces area around 3am, with light to moderate snow beginning in the El Paso area shortly after. The wind and snow continued to be moderate to heavy at times through about 10:30am, with temperatures hovering in the upper 20s to around 30 degrees. Those cold temperatures allowed for the snow to stick to some roads which resulted in some accidents around El Paso and Las Cruces. The storm system continued to bring light snow through much of the rest of our Friday and into our Saturday as well.

After the storm had moved out, some areas had some impressive snowfall totals. In the El Paso area we saw about 1 to 3 inches. The Las Cruces area saw from around 3 inches on the southern side of town, closer to 5 inches further north. One area that saw even more was Radium Springs just north of Las Cruces, receiving 6 inches of snow!