Me neither, NM is a pretty quiet forum.

 

Just to a better place in Los alamos.

 

Good morning everyone. Just a quick check in...work, family and the holidays are keeping me busy! Time to catch up...Los Alamos is better!

 

Wow Los Alamos is rockin the NM forum!

East mountains is just diggin out! LOL!

 

Good morning and hope Monday goes well for you NM. Active here lately.

 

6 inches of snow in Los Alamos.

 

None here, well just a light covering on places. Hopefully its not a green Christmas.

 

Good morning and have a terrific Tuesday NM

 

We got about a foot of snow, Big Red did not care one lil bit. They just now (next morn) opened I-40 from Albuq to the east. There is nothin better than having a 4x4 Ford F Series. You could bake bread with the heater too!

 

Why did they close the road. Kind of foreign concept to me. Here they just keep plowing But if bad would advise not to travel. Unless a bad accident then they might close that section.

 

Good morning and have a productive hump day and winter begins NM

 

Im sure there are official reasons, these are my guesses.

1.) Because the snow comes down so big and fast that the plows cant keep up (its a lot of miles between). It is compressed by the trucks and in some cases compacts to like ice with potholes in it, slowing vehicles drastically or sending vehicles off the road.

2.) The vehicles have to slow down so drastically the distance and rear ending becomes an issue.

3.)The distance between cities is so great there's no place to shelter so people that are in the middle of nowhere skid off into a ditch at a rate and distance so great apart that rescue and tow trucks are overwhelmed, so its just smarter to shut it down and have them stuck in Albuquerque NM or Amarillo TX or Gallup NM where there are hotels and restaurants.

4.) Bridges ice to the point of black ice quick, again spin outs overwhelm the rescue and tow crews.

Its a 5 hour drive from Albuquerque to Amarillo on a nice summer day, if we get a bad snow storm that can more than double.

Particular trouble spots are Gallup/continental Divide, Mountains east of Albuquerque, and the high winds and deep cold of Clines Corners area where winds can get to 70 and chills to -30. So there are challenges.

We are a "through route" and that may be a central reason as well.
For example: I grew up in northern Ohio, and have lived in the mountains here for a while and am very used to winter and high wind conditions. Chelsea, a girl from Santa Monica is going to see her brother in Dallas and has not experienced much worse than 50 degrees and rain. She would likely be found in a ditch frozen around Flagstaff AZ, or like a week or so ago the 80 year old couple caught in a storm, who thought they were still on the main road and wound up at the end of a forest rd. Ran out of gas on day 5, started to walkout, the wife perished.

These are the reasons we close the interstates and secondaries out west. IMHO.

-Bob

 

Makes sense, especially the great distance between towns.

 

Good morning and have a fantastic Christmas Eve eve day NM

 

Merry Christmas New Mexico, and a Happy New Year.