Pictures of Buck Peak (Ruidoso)

The peak wind gust at Ruidoso's Sierra Blanca Regional Airport reached 77 miles per hour at 10:35 a.m. Tuesday, 7-December-2009, said Kerry Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New Mexico. "This was quite a wind event," Jones said. "A tropical storm requires winds of 74. These are the kind of events you see once every three or four years. It was the right time, it all came together."
A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation said New Mexico 532 (a.k.a. Ski Run Road) and Ski Apache Resort were closed Tuesday morning because of blizzard conditions with winds at up to 85 miles an hour. Wind speeds on the mountain ridge tops may have reached 100+ mph.

These are pictures of one of the towers at the Buck Mountain tower site, courtesy Larry Hartman (KD5KCN).

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