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Date: Dec. 30, 2006
Tags: None
.jpg) Albuquerque, New Mexico Digging Out Again
It is snowing again in Albuquerque! We were surprised and thrilled when we unexpectedly received six to eight inches about three weeks ago. Now we are in awe. We are into our third day of snow with a record-breaking thirteen inches in the city. My friends in Edgewood and Tijeras are getting much more.
I had no intention to write about the weather again. Once per year is enough. We who live in Albuquerque thought our last snowfall was worthy of conversation. We could not have anticipated what has been happening these past three days. Albuquerque is having snowfall as if it were the ski resort areas of Taos, Angel Fire, or even Santa Fe. Right now, the city looks and feels like wintertime Baltimore, DC, or New York. No one I talk to, including my neighbor who has lived here for more than forty years can remember ever receiving this much snow at one time.
Church services are cancelled for tomorrow, our two major Interstate Highways are intermittently closed, and travelers by road and air are stuck in and just outside of Albuquerque. It is strange to watch my husband and our neighbors digging out, taking turns, sharing the one snow shovel someone unearthed from the depths of a garage.
We are a hospitable city. The government made arrangements to open up shelters to accommodate many of those stranded. However, having had to wait out a snow storm of smaller proportion in Tucumcari, just a step away from Albuquerque, four years ago, February, after driving all the way across the country from the east coast, I understand the impatience to get going.
In addition, I am having a party tommorow, New Year’s Eve. I am planning a delightful time for 40 people and I want them to turn up; so I am hoping it will not snow tonight and that the sun will shine fiercely enough tomorrow to melt the snow from the streets. We always have to bear in mind the likelihood of icy streets when our desert climate night temperatures fall. We need to have dry roads especially in the evenings.
It is inconceivable that it should snow again tomorrow. This is Albuquerque, after all. We are always thankful for moisture, but we need our sunshine. We cannot tolerate having gray skies for one whole day, let alone three.
Eloise Gift
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