New Mexico Landspout Tornado in January 2025

[William Monfredo]

I was looking at the SPC's tornado statistics for the first month of 2025, and the reports totaled 20.
That's not a lot, but seemed reasonable given that this January turned out to be the coldest in the lower 48 since 1994 per WeatherBell.
Then I noticed the mid-afternoon tornado report from Bernalillo County, New Mexico, near Albuquerque on the 29th:
A rare landspout with snow on the ground, too.

 

[John Farley]

This was likely a rare case of a tornado associated with a snow shower/thunderstorm. The daily climate summary for that day at the ABQ International Sunport indicated a high of 41 and a low of 22 with .02" of precipitation and .2" of snow. Some of the mountains farther north got in excess of 20 inches of snow with that weather system, although the amounts were much less in the mountains near ABQ. The ABQ climate summary listed significant weather as thunderstorm, hail, light snow, and fog. No mention of rain.