Welcome To Southeast New Mexico Weather.

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 ...

October 25, 2025. Alamo Peak South Of Cloudcroft, NM. The last couple of days have been abnormally warm across New Mexico, with some new daily record high temperatures tied or broken. This trend will continue today and Thursday before a couple of cold fronts show up to knock our daily temps back down closer to seasonal normals Friday and Saturday.  Everyone in southeastern New Mexico experienced their first freeze of the season back on October 29th and 30th, except for the Carlsbad, Loving, and Malaga areas. A few Personal Weather Stations (PWS) did drop down to 32 or below in north Carlsbad and in the Otis area. But the official temperature at the Carlsbad Airport ASOS only dropped to 34 on the 30th. I recorded 33 here at our home in northwest Carlabd.  A backdoor cold front should cool us down enough Sunday night into Monday morning for us to see a freeze across the Pecos Valley, including the Carlsbad area.  A pattern change may bring more fall-like weather to the stat...

October 25, 2025. West Of Mayhill, New Mexico.  If you are a fan of beautiful, uneventful, even boring weather in November, then your number is up. Tranquil weather with above-average temperatures will rule the day (and nights) this upcoming week and beyond. The only fly in the ointment will be around next Thursday when an upper-level trough swings by to the north of the state, which will kick up the winds across the eastern plains.  A cold front is working its way westward through the western half of the state at noontime this Saturday after having moved southward down the eastern plains overnight and this morning.  Gusty northerly winds accompanied the frontal passage, and a Personal Weather Station (PWS) W5JXT in Roswell clocked a gust to 50 mph. The West Texas Mesonet Station 6 miles west of Whites City (Carlsbad Caverns) clocked a gust to 60 mph at 3:32 AM this morning with the frontal passage. Most locations across the eastern half of the state have gusted up into t...