Anyone in the mood to sing in the rain could have belted it out loudly through the wee hours of Wednesday morning as rain pounded Santa Fe. The thunderstorm that drenched the City Different left a dusting of snow visible on Santa Fe Baldy on Wednesday morning. It was a good omen for moisture watchers after an August that was warmer and drier than usual.

Snowpack telemetry stations around the mountains, monitored by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, picked up a trace to a few inches of snow in the north-central mountains in the last three days.

The Santa Fe Snotel site at 11,445 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains received about an inch of snow between Sunday and Tuesday. The site has recorded 34.6 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1 of last year, putting the area well ahead of the worst droughts of the last decade in 2000 and 2002.

The Snotel site at Elk Mountain near the Pecos Wilderness, at 8,210 feet, received enough snow to equal .4 inches of water, but with no measurable snow depth.

Other areas of Northern New Mexico mountains also fared well in the early snowstorm.

The Red River Snotel site recorded 4 inches of snow Monday and 8 inches Tuesday.

Freezes in Santa Fe, when temperatures drop below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, usually occur anytime after the first week in September. On average, the first real freeze is mid-October. So anyone with tomatoes still on their backyard garden vines might want to bring out the plastic to cover the plants at night, or bring the fruit inside to ripen.

The scattered locations where rain measurements are taken show the wide variability in rainfall around the city. The Santa Fe Municipal Airport recorded less than a fourth of an inch of rain, while a site in the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed measured .87 inches. Seton Village recorded a little more than half an inch of rain.

The National Weather Service seven-day forecast calls for partly cloudy weather around Santa Fe through the week, with temperatures climbing back into the 80s by the weekend.

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