Welcome To Southeast New Mexico Weather.

December 27, 2015. Our Front Yard In Carlsbad, NM. I measured 13" On The Ground With 3' To 10' Drifts In Carlsbad. Looking Back At Our December 2015 Blizzard. Historic Blizzard Shuts Down Much Of New Mexico - Dec 27, 2015. Some Say It Never Snows In SE NM - It Did! Our Home & Three Days Later The Roads Are Still A Mess In SE NM - Dec 30, 2015. Five Days After The First Flakes Fell - Artesia To Cloudcroft - January 1, 2016. A dangerous winter storm will begin impacting southern and southeastern New Mexico, including the Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountains, late tonight and continue into at least Tuesday morning. Travel disruptions and road closures are likely in the warning and advisory areas.  Blizzard conditions are forecast to develop tonight in the Guadalupe Mountains of Eddy and Culberson Counties around 10 PM MST. North to northeast winds gusting up to around 50 mph, along with heavy snow, blowing and drifting snow, and whiteout conditions, will make travel next t...

2025 Christmas Sunset. At Our Home In Carlsbad, New Mexico.  Blog Updated At 5:14 PM MST Saturday, Dec 27, 2025. Looking Back At Our December 2015 Blizzard. Historic Blizzard Shuts Down Much Of New Mexico - Dec 27, 2015. Some Say It Never Snows In SE NM - It Did! Our Home & Three Days Later The Roads Are Still A Mess In SE NM - Dec 30, 2015. Five Days After The First Flakes Fell - Artesia To Cloudcroft - January 1, 2016. Hundreds Of Record Warm NM Temperatures Shattered In December. December has already gone down in the history books as being unbelievably warm, with a remarkable number of new records tied or broken. As of Christmas Day, there have been 307 new daily record high temperatures that have either been tied or broken by the state's National Weather Service Climate Co-Op Stations. There have been 143 new daily high minimum (warm overnight lows) tied or broken. Some 31 new all-time December high temperature records have been tied or broken. As well as 14 new all-time De...

Christmas Eve Morning 2011. Max Snow Depth Ended Up At 12" At Our Home In Carlsbad.  M e rr y   C h r i s t m a s  E v e r y o n e ! Near Record To Record Heat Christmas Eve & Christmas This Year. Winter is on spring vacation for New Mexico this Christmas week. Speaking of spring, our daily high/low temps will be closer to early spring or late fall values for much of the state the rest of this holiday week. No doubt many new daily and possibly a few new all-time daily high temp records will fall, as well as a few daily record warm low temperatures.   If you're looking for a white Christmas, then you will have to journey up to the high country of far northern New Mexico, where snow may fall above 10,000' late Christmas Eve into Christmas.  A chance for scattered light rain showers exists across the lowlands of western and northern New Mexico late Christmas Eve into Christmas, with storm totals forecast to be less than a quarter of an inch.  The Sacr...

November 17, 2025. Hondo Valley East Of Ruidoso. Blog Updated at 12:56 PM MST, Sunday, 12-21-2025 Dang, It's Hot For December.  Instead of tossing snowballs and building snowmen, New Mexicans spent the day basking in near record to record heat. Our high temperatures today were some 15 to 25 degrees above normal. No doubt many new daily records were tied and some broken across the state.  So far, the highest temp I can find in the state was an unofficial 86 at a PWS in Lakewood. The Carlsbad Airport reported 83, just one degree shy of the record of 84 set in 1933. Normal high for the date is 56. The Artesia AG Science Center NMSU site reported a high of 85, which would shatter Artesia's previous record for the date of 80 set way back in 1921.  Normal high for the date is 56. The Roswell Airport reported a high today of 78, which beats their previous record high for the date of 75 set in 1981. Contrast that with their record low temp for today of -10 set back in 1909. And i...

November 17, 2025. Hondo Valley East Of Ruidoso. Winter - What Winter? Over the past several weeks, there has been very little to talk about centered around our weather. Northern New Mexico has had a couple of winter storms so far, but nothing earth-shattering for sure. The rest of the state has been pretty much left high and dry, not to mention warmer to at times much warmer than normal. And dry as a bone. For the foreseeable future, this is not going to change, at least through Christmas week and into the holiday weekend. Continued warm to abnormally warm and bone-dry conditions will be our theme for this year's upcoming Christmas holidays.   A backdoor cold front will slide south and west tonight into Sunday morning, dropping our high temps across the eastern half of the state on Sunday down into the upper 40s to the mid-50s. These readings will be close to slightly below normal, but will quickly rebound next week to above normal, to much above normal.  Keep in mind th...

November 17, 2025. Rio Hondo Bridge (4,976'). East Of Hondo In Lincoln County. New Mexico Snowfall Was Impressive. As of noontime today, the greatest 24-hour snowfall total I can find in New Mexico was the 12.0" reported by the Cedar Crest CoCoRaHS Station 3.0 miles north-northeast, followed by 11.5" at the Sandia Park CoCoRaHS Station 0.5 miles south. Additional totals reported are listed in my blog post.  Ski Apache west of Ruidoso measured 4.0" of new snowfall, bringing their season total to 7.0". The public reported 4.0" in Capitan. The Ruidoso National Weather Service Climate Co-Op Station measured 1.5" of snowfall.  In Cloudcroft, the National Weather Service Climate Co-Op Station measured 3.5" of new snowfall. While the Cloudcroft CoCoRaHS Station, 0.4 miles east-southeast, measured 2.8" of new snow, the Cloudcroft CoCoRaHS Station, located 1.8 miles southwest, measured 2.5".  Overnight, the Roswell Airport picked up .10" of ...

November 30, 2025.  Final 2025 Fall Sunset. Penasco River Ranch - Northeast Of Dunken, NM. Blog Updated At 3:35 PM MST, Tuesday, Dec 2, 2025.  Warm, dry, southwesterly and westerly downsloping winds are forecast to gust up to around 40 to 50 mph across east-central New Mexico this afternoon. High temps across parts of the southeastern plains will climb up into the upper 60's to near 70. A  mid-upper level  shortwave   trough of low pressure is forecast to dive southward into the Great Basin late today into Wednesday, before swinging eastward across New Mexico Wednesday night and Thursday. A cold front will drop southward into northern New Mexico this afternoon and push slowly south through the state Wednesday night. Colder air will overspread the state behind it. Winter Weather Advisories are in effect for parts of the Northern Mountains, the Central Highlands, and Northeastern New Mexico today through Thursday. Accumulating snowfall is expected across these ar...

November 26, 2025. Lea County Sunrise. Colder Temps Headed Our Way. Monday marks the  beginning  of  meteorological winter (Dec 1st), but other than a couple of snowstorms over the mountains so far, significant winter weather has avoided most of New Mexico.  A strong southward advancing backdoor cold front will push south through the eastern half of the state Saturday into Saturday evening. This frontal passage will be marked by northerly wind gusts of around 40 mph. If these winds are stronger than forecast across the eastern and southeastern plains, then I would think that there could be a few areas of brief blowing dust occurrences with the frontal passage.  Colder air will spread south and west behind the front Saturday into Monday. Low clouds are expected to develop across parts of the southeastern plains and parts of West Texas tonight into Saturday morning as low-level upslope flow ahead of the front develops.  A High Wind Watch remains in effect fo...

November 17, 2025. Hondo Valley Fall Colors. Near Picacho, New Mexico. Our Next Storm Headed Our Way This Weekend. Impressive rainfall totals occurred over much of the state over the past three days. Many reporting stations ended up with storm totals of .50" to 1.00".  One of the greatest totals noted was by the Las Vegas 12.1 miles west CoCoraHS Station with 2.34". The Signal Peak Snotel Site northeast of Silver City reported 2.20". Not far behind was the Las Cruces 9.0 miles northeast CoCoRaHS Station with 1.80". Not bad at all, any time of the year, but this is highly unusual for late November. The Sacramento Observatory Raws at Sunspot, south of Cloudcroft, reported 1.06". And a Personal Weather Station (PWS) south of High Rolls reported 1.03".  Ski Apache west of Ruidoso picked up 4" of new snowfall, while Cloudcroft officially measured a storm total of 4.5" of snowfall, and 1.23" of precipitation (rain and melted snowfall). Ruidos...

November 19, 2025. Looking East From C-Hill. Carlsbad, New Mexico Sunrise. Here Comes The Rain & Snow. Central Arizona and southern Nevada got clobbered with heavy rainfall over the past 24 hours, according to measured and radar-estimated totals. Widespread .50" to 1" totals were common with pockets of 2" to 3". Highly unusual for late November. This is more like a September pattern.  As of 7 AM MST this morning, the closed mid-upper level low responsible for this wet pattern was centered over southern California. It will track east into southeastern Arizona by around noontime tomorrow, then continue to open up and swing northeast into Colorado by midnight Thursday. By sunrise Thursday, a second closed mid-upper level low will be centered just west of Los Angeles. This storm is then forecast to slide southeast, then pivot across northwestern Mexico on Friday, and southern Arizona on Saturday into Sunday. By noontime on Sunday, it should be located somewhere clos...

November 17, 2025. Near Picacho, New Mexico. Finally, The Wait Is Over. Say what? Severe thunderstorms in southwestern New Mexico on Wednesday, and southeastern New Mexico and West Texas on Wednesday afternoon into Thursday?. Yes, you read that correctly. A few marginally severe or perhaps a few supercell thunderstorms will be possible, with the main severe weather hazards being large hail, damaging thunderstorm wind gusts in excess of 60 mph, frequent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, locally heavy rainfall, and localized flash flooding.   A potent mid-upper level low centered north of LA this morning is forecast to drop slowly southward into southern California on Wednesday, then begin to swing eastward across northwestern Mexico, and southern Arizona on Thursday.  By Thursday afternoon, it is forecast to open up and cross New Mexico as a secondary closed low develops over northern California. Then takes a similar path as the first closed low Friday into Sunday. The mo...

November 15, 2025. Arteisa, New Mexico. Park Junior High School. Pattern Flip Starts Today. Waiting for our weather to change to more fall-like or even winter-like conditions has been like being a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive in July. Painfully slow with much doubt that it will. Alas, it is finally starting to happen, and next week promises to be interesting.  But another day of near record to record high temperatures are once again in store for the southeastern plains today, with forecast highs in the low to mid 80s. This isn't normal, and these readings are more typical of late September and the first of October.  As a Pacific cold front approaches the state, combined with a negatively tilted mid-level short wave trough of low pressure, scattered lowland rain showers and high mountain snow showers will break out over western and north-central New Mexico this afternoon and overnight.  A few isolated thunderstorms will be possible along and west of the Continental ...

October 25, 2025. Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Don't forget to go outside and look to the north after dark to see the northern lights again. Hopefully, they will put on as good a show, if not better than last night's.  Much as I had suspected, this morning's run of the forecast models (GFS, ECMWF, GEM) has done an almost about-face with their forecasts concerning this weekend's storm. All three have backed way off on the chances and amounts of lowland rainfall and higher mountain snowfall for the state. No, I won't be surprised if they continue to waffle back and forth for the next couple of days until they get a better handle on the situation. Nor will I be surprised if we end up a little wetter and cooler than the current model forecasts are calling for. Next week looks active too.  A Pacific cold front is forecast to move from west to east across the state on Sunday, bringing cooler temperatures to the state into the first of next week. Until then, near record to reco...

November 7, 2025. Near Sitting Bull Falls. Southwest Of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Blog Post Updated At 4:08 PM MST, Monday, Nov 10, 2025.  Finally, those changes in our weather I've been talking about will come into play by Friday, into the first of next week. All three of this morning's deterministic forecast models (GFS, ECMWF, GEM) are forecasting a strong mid-upper level low to dig south from the Gulf of Alaska southward into California by Friday into the upcoming weekend. Then swing across southern or central New Mexico over the weekend.  Overall, a Pacific winter-like storm will begin to impact New Mexico's weather by Friday and continue into the weekend.  Lowland rain showers and mountain snows are being painted by the models this upcoming weekend. Current thinking on snow levels next weekend will be between 6,500' and 7,500' across the state's mountains. At least light to moderate snowfall looks possible over the state's mountains if not heavy in some hi...

November 6, 2025. Looking Southwest From Carlsbad, NM. Altocumulus Standing Lenticular Clouds (ACSL). A cold front has passed southward through the eastern half of the state as of 1 PM MST. It will continue to move south and west (backdoor) through the rest of the state tonight into about noontime Sunday. A much cooler airmass will work its way south into the state later tonight into Sunday.  This is one of those weird cases when the coldest airmass associated with the frontal boundary lags far behind to the north. We won't see the colder air arrive in southeastern New Mexico until late tonight into Sunday, even though the front itself has already passed south of us.  There is quite a large temperature spread across this frontal boundary from the northern plains to South Texas. At 1 PM MST it was 18F with a wind chill temp of 4F in Crosby, North Dakota, and 37F in Rapid City, South Dakota. Denver was 52F, Clayton, 55F, Roswell, 77F, Carlsbad, 82F, Del Rio, Texas, 84F, and 97F ...