National Weather Service forecasters in Albuquerque can break out the Champagne and toast themselves.

They were spot-on with their prediction of Wednesday's storm, which dumped several inches of snow in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, sent water rushing down the Santa Fe River and brought gusty wind problems to the Santa Fe Municipal Airport.

Forecasters had predicted major thunderstorms in the central Rio Grande region, wind gusts of 50 miles per hour or more and up to 7 inches of snow above 7,500 feet in the mountains.

The Santa Fe snowpack telemetry site, near the ski basin above 11,000 feet in elevation, gained more than half a foot of snow Wednesday. But melted down into a cup, the snow at the measuring point only equaled a gain of about an inch of water. Information for the Elk Cabin snotel site east of Santa Fe at 8,200 feet elevation was not available Wednesday evening.

"This was a very wound-up storm with a lot of moisture wrapped in it," said meteorologist Chuck Jones from the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

Temperatures in Santa Fe plummeted from the 70s on Tuesday to the 40s on Wednesday, and a steady rain fell in the downtown area.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for north-central and northeastern New Mexico through Wednesday late afternoon as the storm that formed over California moved across Arizona and into New Mexico. The same storm dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of Colorado and an inch of rain in Albuquerque.

Accuweather predicted snow through Wednesday night in the mountains. Jones said parts of the state, including Santa Fe, would continue to feel the storm's effects through today with cloudy, cold weather. Mostly sunny skies are predicted through the weekend for the Santa Fe area.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.