Mother Nature Calms Down For A Few Days.
As bad as yesterday's weather was, it could have ended up being much worse. Peak wind speeds were not as strong as forecast (see yesterday's summary for a listing of the peak winds across the area) across the Guadalupe Mountains and Eddy County. That is not necessarily a bad thing either. The main core of the strongest winds aloft swept across the northern sections of southeastern New Mexico and eastern New Mexico. Thus the Roswell Airport peaked out at 63 mph, while gusts to 61-64 mph were recorded in the Clovis area.
March is upon us, and with this comes the beginning of the meteorological spring, and of course the official start to our windy season. This is not my favorite time of the year trust me. Given the fact that we continue to sink deeper into our ongoing drought, and the fact the La Nina continues to hang on, we can only expect more of what of we experienced yesterday for the next couple of months.
Mother nature will take a break most of this week from her rampaging wind fits. At least until about Thursday or Friday when the next upper-level trough of low pressure sweeps by to our north. We are not out of the danger zone for freezing temperatures just yet. Our lows tonight will be near freezing across the area, and this will occur again Saturday morning behind yet another Dry Pacific Cold Front.
Meanwhile we will start another warming trend Tuesday with afternoon high temperatures forecast to be in the upper 70's. Wednesday will continue the warming trend with highs in the mid-upper 80's, and Thursday will be the warmest day of the week with highs in the upper 80's. A few spots could even flirt with the 90 degree mark.
Strong southwesterly winds will increase across the area Thursday afternoon, ahead of the next fast moving upper-level storm due to sweep across the state on Friday. A Dry Pacific Cold Front will move eastward across the area Friday night, which will help to knock our daytime highs back down into the 60's for Saturday.
More High Winds Extreme Fire Danger Next Week!
Looking ahead to next week the models are already hinting at the possibility of another high wind event across the area. Of course this far out there are some differences in the models on the exact track, strength, and speed of this potential dry wind bag of a storm. Do you see a pattern developing here? For now it appears that the Polar Jet Stream will continue to dive southward out of the Pacific Northwest, and send these strong southern stream storms over the state roughly every 5-7 days or so. Oh joy, just what we need, more wind, dust, and fire weather conditions! NOT!
The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction!
