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FXUS65 KABQ 200024 AAA AFDABQ

Area Forecast Discussion...UPDATED National Weather Service Albuquerque NM 624 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

New AVIATION

SYNOPSIS
Issued at 146 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

Last night and today a cold front has pushed through much of eastern New Mexico. The front weakly pushed through the central mountains with brief gap winds at Albuquerque. Another cold front will move into the region tonight with much colder air across eastern New Mexico on Saturday. High temperatures will be 20 to 30 degrees below normal due to the colder air, patchy fog, clouds, drizzle, light rain, and a few showers which spread across the eastern plains in its wake. Gusty canyons winds are likely again tonight in the Rio Grande Valley. Temperatures will warm up again Sunday after clouds and fog burn off in the morning. Meanwhile, western NM will remain dry, warm, and breezy through the weekend.
Temperatures quickly rise to 10 to 20 degrees above normal Monday through Wednesday with Tuesday being the warmest day. The higher temperatures should allow for increased snowmelt runoff for area rivers and arroyos. There will be another cold front to push into eastern New Mexico Tuesday into Wednesday which may result in a gradient in temperatures across the region depending upon the timing of the front.

SHORT TERM
(This evening through Saturday night)
Issued at 146 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

A weak Pacific trough is on approach from over SoCal and a reinforcing backdoor cold front is currently moving south across the east central plains of Colorado. The reinforcing backdoor front will surge southwest across the area overnight and result in another round of gusty east canyon winds into the Albuquerque Metro, but are still forecast below advisory criteria. Gusts to between 40-45mph are likely after midnight, especially below the mouth of Tijeras Canyon west across southeast ABQ to the Sunport. Isentropic upglide is forecast to trend up overnight into Saturday across eastern NM as the Pacific trough approaches and interacts with the back door front, but moisture will be mostly limited to the frontal layer and the result will likely be light rain and/or drizzle vs convection, although we can not completely rule out a lightning strike or two across portions of the east central/southeast plains near the TX border. Due to easterly upslope flow and a near saturated frontal layer, areas of fog will likely develop early Saturday morning across eastern portions of the area and be slow to diminish. High temperatures will be an impressive 20-25 degrees below normal across the eastern plains tomorrow. The front is modeled to hold-on across the RGV Saturday and not mix out like today, which will make for high temperatures in the 60s. A few showers are likely across the northern mountains Saturday afternoon, especially near the CO border, as the front provides upslope forcing and the Pacific trough moves overhead. Precipitation will diminish Saturday evening and areas of fog may redevelop overnight across eastern NM as a moist frontal layer remains entrenched.

LONG TERM
(Sunday through Thursday)
Issued at 146 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

Overall forecast confidence is pretty high for Sunday through Wednesday given the consistency in the various ensemble guidance.
This results in an upper level pattern with above normal heights at 500mb as ridging builds during this time over much of the Desert SW. Ridging shifts east on Wednesday through the end of next week but the timing of which varies from one model ensemble cluster to the next. The forecast leans more on the side of the ECMWF/Canadian with the GFS being quite progressive with a shortwave coming across the Pacific into AZ on Wednesday. There is still some time for better agreement in the ensembles and increase confidence in this pattern timing.

The result of this forecast pattern is to adjust high temperatures from the NBM upward. Deterministic NBM for high temperatures Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for much of the area are closer to the 25th percentile. The adjustment was to blend closer to the 50th percentile these days which is supported by atmospheric process ongoing with this pattern. SW/W winds should increase some to allow for solid downsloping in a lot of areas and deep mixing in the boundary layer. Tuesday looks the strongest with both these processes along with anomalously higher heights aloft. Even with the forecast nudge upward some forecast points are still on the lower side of guidance so there is potential for the forecast to bust with higher temperatures based on this spread. That said the other area where the forecast has a potential for busting will be Tuesday into Wednesday for the NE part of the the state where another cold front pushes into the area. There is some pretty good spread in the timing of the front so this would lead to there being larger spread in temperatures.
We lean more towards a slower push with the front especially south of I-40 but there is a chance the front pushes in faster thus really flipping the script on the temperature forecast.

Now temperatures early next week are not looking to be near levels to where there will be heat impacts or heat related illnesses. The potential is still there for SE NM like for Roswell with high temperatures in the mid 90s. The other concern will be these higher temperatures and air causing more rapid melt of snowpack in the higher elevations. Snow Water Equivalents are still above normal in the Jemez Mountains and portions of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains so there could be additional flows and push some basins to action stage. A flood advisory has been issued for the Rio Chama below Chamita. We will continue to monitor flows on the Rio Chama, Jemez, Rio Grande, Embudo and over to the Pecos. It is still unclear what runoff there will be on the other side like for the Mora and Sapello Rivers.

Overpeck

AVIATION
(00Z TAFS)
Issued at 602 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

With persistent easterly upslope flow, low clouds and fog will increase in coverage east of the central mountain chain tonight producing widespread MVFR and IFR conditions. The low clouds will make their way into Santa Fe as well during the early morning hours Saturday. Models depict flight category restrictions continuing for much or all of Saturday across the east. Some light rain may also occur over east central and southeast areas late tonight through Saturday morning, and there could be a few thunderstorms from the Caprock southward (including the Clovis and Portales area) Saturday morning. In the afternoon, high resolution models depict scattered to isolated showers and thunderstorms developing along and just east of the central mountain chain with movement to the east around 10-20 KT. Stronger cells will be capable of small hail and localized erratic wind gusts up to 40 KT. Further, a gusty gap wind is again forecast in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area this evening through much of Saturday morning. An Airport Weather Warning will probably be issued for KABQ for wind gusts exceeding 35 KT during the late night and early morning hours.

FIRE WEATHER
Issued at 146 PM MDT Fri Apr 19 2024

Hot, dry and unstable conditions prevail across western NM this afternoon with excellent mixing as a Pacific trough approaches from the west. A reinforcing backdoor cold front will surge southwest across the area overnight and interact with the approaching Pacific trough to produce chances for wetting precipitation that will be highest across the east central plains near the TX border. Much cooler conditions will prevail Saturday behind the backdoor front, with well below normal temperatures and relatively high humidity across eastern NM. Warming is forecast early next week as an upper level ridge moves east across the region. Spotty critical fire weather conditons are possible Monday, mainly across the northeast highlands, prior to the ridge moving over on Tuesday bringing lighter winds. Highs on Tuesday will be above normal areawide. An upper level trough is forecast to impact the area around the middle of next week with stronger winds and the potential for critical fire weather conditions, but low forecast confidence on the timing due to fairly significant model spread.

11

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS
Farmington...................... 45 76 41 77 / 0 5 0 0 Dulce........................... 39 70 33 74 / 0 20 0 5 Cuba............................ 41 68 35 71 / 0 20 0 5 Gallup.......................... 33 75 34 76 / 0 0 0 0 El Morro........................ 37 70 37 71 / 0 5 0 5 Grants.......................... 36 74 34 74 / 0 5 0 0 Quemado......................... 39 72 39 73 / 0 5 0 5 Magdalena....................... 49 70 41 70 / 0 20 0 5 Datil........................... 42 69 41 70 / 0 5 0 5 Reserve......................... 37 76 37 79 / 0 5 0 0 Glenwood........................ 49 80 49 82 / 0 5 0 0 Chama........................... 38 64 32 67 / 5 30 10 10 Los Alamos...................... 42 62 40 68 / 5 20 10 10 Pecos........................... 36 54 35 68 / 20 20 10 10 Cerro/Questa.................... 38 59 39 64 / 20 50 40 10 Red River....................... 30 54 29 60 / 20 70 50 20 Angel Fire...................... 28 55 26 61 / 30 40 30 20 Taos............................ 37 63 31 69 / 10 30 20 10 Mora............................ 33 53 32 65 / 30 30 20 10 Espanola........................ 46 66 38 76 / 5 20 5 5 Santa Fe........................ 44 61 39 70 / 10 20 10 5 Santa Fe Airport................ 43 63 37 73 / 5 10 5 0 Albuquerque Foothills........... 50 66 46 76 / 5 10 5 0 Albuquerque Heights............. 49 69 44 77 / 0 10 0 0 Albuquerque Valley.............. 49 71 43 79 / 0 10 0 0 Albuquerque West Mesa........... 49 70 44 77 / 0 10 0 0 Belen........................... 50 74 41 79 / 0 10 0 0 Bernalillo...................... 48 70 43 79 / 0 10 0 0 Bosque Farms.................... 48 72 41 79 / 0 10 0 0 Corrales........................ 47 70 43 79 / 0 10 0 0 Los Lunas....................... 48 73 41 79 / 0 10 0 0 Placitas........................ 47 66 44 74 / 5 10 5 5 Rio Rancho...................... 48 69 44 78 / 0 10 0 0 Socorro......................... 52 76 44 80 / 0 20 0 0 Sandia Park/Cedar Crest......... 42 58 40 68 / 10 10 10 5 Tijeras......................... 41 59 40 71 / 10 10 10 0 Edgewood........................ 39 57 38 72 / 10 10 10 0 Moriarty/Estancia............... 38 59 34 73 / 10 10 5 0 Clines Corners.................. 36 49 33 65 / 10 10 10 0 Mountainair..................... 41 59 38 71 / 5 10 5 0 Gran Quivira.................... 41 61 35 71 / 0 10 5 0 Carrizozo....................... 48 67 42 73 / 0 20 0 0 Ruidoso......................... 40 51 38 65 / 5 30 10 5 Capulin......................... 32 46 31 61 / 40 20 30 5 Raton........................... 34 52 32 65 / 40 30 30 5 Springer........................ 37 51 35 64 / 30 20 20 0 Las Vegas....................... 35 48 34 61 / 30 20 10 0 Clayton......................... 34 47 33 61 / 30 20 30 0 Roy............................. 36 46 35 59 / 40 20 20 5 Conchas......................... 40 50 39 66 / 50 30 20 0 Santa Rosa...................... 40 49 38 61 / 30 30 10 0 Tucumcari....................... 40 50 37 61 / 50 50 10 0 Clovis.......................... 41 49 39 59 / 70 60 10 0 Portales........................ 41 50 38 62 / 70 60 10 0 Fort Sumner..................... 41 52 39 63 / 40 40 10 0 Roswell......................... 49 57 46 65 / 30 40 10 0 Picacho......................... 43 54 40 63 / 10 30 10 0 Elk............................. 41 56 38 66 / 5 40 10 0

ABQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
None.

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