April 23, 2012 Virga bombs moons and stars over NM

While is the midst of a lame weather pattern like the current one, the tour tries to make up for a lack of storms with pretty scenery.  We left Raton, NM, and headed to Taos, NM, for lunch.  Our route to Taos was through spectacular Cimarron Canyon.  At one point in the canyon, where the sheer cliffs tower hundreds of feet above the Cimarron River, a sign says that you must have a permit to stop along the turnout and view the canyon area.  A ranger drove by, stopped in the middle of the road, and yelled “YOU GOTTA BUY A PERMIT”!  Right — we are gonna buy a permit to stop here for five minutes to admire the surroundings.  Silly.

Anyhow, we found a delicious Mexican Restaurant in Taos (Randy’s?), and the food was good there, too.  Enough monsoon-like moisture at mid-levels was in place for mountain storms in the area.  One of these was back to our east a little, so we headed back through the canyon, past the spot where we saw some deer on the way in, and observed a high-based junky thing that bordered on interesting and pretty.    This was around Springer and Wagon Mound, along I-25.

The weak convection dissipated towards sunset, and I was able to grab some nice sunset stills while we headed north back to Raton.

Later that evening, I took several of the guests some 15-20 miles east of Raton (via Yankee, NM) to view the nice, dark starry skies.  Despite an elevation of about 8000 feet, the weather was quite mild and the winds were calm—quite unbelievable for late April!