These are a few pictures taken from Clines Corners, NM (about 60 miles east of Albuquerque on I-40). Clines Corners sits along a gentle sloping ridge just below 7,100 feet in elevation. The area frequently observes gusty winds due to topographical forcing and when you add copious amounts of snow, it can easily reach near “white-out” conditions due to blowing and drifting snow. The Albuquerque National Weather Service office maintains an Automated Surface Observing Site (ASOS) in Clines Corners and unfortunately the precipitation data for the past 30+ days has been erroneous and unusable. The actual rain gauge includes an 8″ diameter cylindrical bucket with the rim of the bucket at a height of about 5 feet above the ground. Surrounding the bucket is a perimeter of metal flaps that act to shield the falling rain drops from the wind in order to maximize the rain measurement. The bucket has heaters in the bottom that melt snow and thus measure a water equivalent of snowfall.

With 5ft. of drifted snow on top of the gauge, the heaters were continuously melting the snow allowing a continuous stream of water to be measured while the winds kept drifting the snow back on top of the gauge. In other words, the heaters could not keep up with this newly blown snow covering the gauge. The data was contaminated and we were seeing erroneous readings of 20+ inches of precipitation due to this process. Needless to say, our technicians had to physically dig out the gauge to prevent this from happening.Temperature readings were also reading several degrees cooler than they should have been. The nearby temperature sensor was also feeling the effects of the snowpack.