1 of 2 | Vehicles impacted by a mudslide are abandoned on the road as a storm sweeps through Southern California, bringing torrential rains and high winds, in Topanga, Calif., on Monday Downtown Los Angeles recorded 5.62 inches of rain in 24 hours. Remnants of the storm moved east into Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE
Feb. 11 (UPI) — Forecasters issued a winter storm advisory for parts of eastern New Mexico on Sunday as the remnants of a massive atmospheric river storm that pummeled California last week move east, with the Texas Panhandle and central Oklahoma in its path.
The National Weather Service warned of icy, snow-packed roads and potentially dangerous travel as the slow-moving front headed east, giving parts of New Mexico their first measurable snowfall of the year and dumping more than 3 feet of snow over three days in northern Arizona.
Arizona Snowbowl, a ski hill in Flagstaff’s 12,600 foot San Francisco peaks range, welcomed 55 inches from the recent storms, bringing its snowfall total to 140 inches this season.
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All lifts and trails at the ski area were open Sunday, and the hill has not resorted to making artificial snow, thanks to the new snowfall.
Farther south, a rogue thunderstorm, replete with dangerous flashes of lightning and blowing hail, dropped a strange mix of wind, rain and freezing slush, known as graupel, on parts of suburban Phoenix and left neighborhoods and intersections covered in a blanket of wet, sloppy slush, but gave the appearance of freshly fallen snow at night.
As the front moved east, the National Weather Service in Albuquerque said temperatures were in the mid-30s, which is as many as 25 degrees below normal.
“Hopefully, it will diminish by sunset,” Jennifer Shoemake, a meteorologist for the weather service in Albuquerque, said Sunday.
She said the storm system appeared to be headed next to the Texas Panhandle and central Oklahoma, where warnings already were in effect.
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The weather service forecast up to 8 inches of snow Sunday in the west Texas city of Lubbock, with 1.3 inches already on the ground in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.
The storms are the remnants of the atmospheric river that dumped heavy rain and snow in California and other parts of the West beginning early Wednesday. It caused power outages, street flooding and hundreds of destructive mudslides around Los Angeles.
Shoemake said Albuquerque received 4 inches of snow Saturday, with the surrounding mountains reporting between 6 and 9 inches.
“Likely some decent skiing conditions,” Shoemake said.
The heavy snow allowed the Sandia Peak Ski Area in Albuquerque to open for the first time since 2022. The hill reported top-to-bottom skiing open across 300 acres on all of its 35 trails.
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“It’s like we are in the clouds up there,” snowboarder Jovanni Orozco told Albuquerque TV station KOB. “Literally, it is like low you can’t even see nothing and then the snow just covers your goggles, but it’s fun!”
The inclement weather forced the National Park Service to close the Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, N.M., on Saturday afternoon, but the agency reopened it Sunday after snow removal operations.
The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.
SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.
Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images
Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.
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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.
Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.
There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.
Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation | Las Cruces Sun-News
After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.
It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.
Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.
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Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:
Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).
What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.
That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.
With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.
New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.
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But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.
Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.
What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility
