Power to 9,000 customers has been restored after more than 50,000 customers in the Albuquerque metro area and to the north including the Santa Fe area, were without power Thursday morning, according to PNM.

Tens of thousands of people in New Mexico were without power Thursday as the first major winter storm of the season rolled across the northern two-thirds of the state and into Colorado, bringing with it snow and fierce winds that forced schools and government offices to close.

Thousands are are being impacted by power outages around Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and Las Vegas, according to the Public Service Company of New Mexico. Nearly 53,000 were without power in the PNM service area on Thursday morning.

LITTLETON, Colo. – A potentially historic winter storm is dumping snow on New Mexico and Colorado. The FOX Forecast Center reports that the storm will pummel the mountains of New Mexico with extreme snow not seen in November in years.

Several feet of snow were expected to fall in parts of New Mexico and Colorado over the next three days in what meteorologists said could be the worst blizzard to hit the region in decades, as the authorities warned of dangerous road conditions and power outages.

A winter storm knocked out power to tens of thousands of New Mexicans, and some schools and government offices closed Thursday as more than 2 feet of snow fell in some parts of the state. Nearly 36,000 households were without electricity in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque areas,