Gradually Cooling Down & Scattered To Numerous Showers/T-Storms.

September 6, 2026.

Sierra Blanca Peak - Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Selected Highest September Rainfall Totals.

(Sept 1st - Sept 17th).

Forest Service Rd 120 HADS - N of Ruidoso Downs 4.83"

Pierce Canyon PWS -  S of Cloudcroft 4.81"

Quemado CoCoRaHS 15.2 SW 4.33"

Tatum CoCoRaHS 0.9 E 4.00"

Cloudcroft CoCoRaHS 0.4 ESE 4.00"

Lordsburg CoCoRaHS 8.3 NW 3.96"

Cloudcroft CoCoRaHS 1.8 SW 3.64"

Nogal CoCoRaHS 4.6 SSE 3.59"

Smokey Bear Raws - Ruidoso 2.89"

Weed PWS 2.82"

Mescal Raws - Mescalero 2.76"

Silver City NWS Climate COOP Station 2.73"

Ski Apache CoCoRaHS 2.66"

Cloudcroft CoCoRaHS 4.0 E 2.65"

El Paso COCORaHS 4.4 SW 2.63"

Jal Country Club NMCC 2.50"

Cloudcroft NWS Climate COOP Station 2.38"

Ruidoso NWS Climate COOP Station 2.25"

Gallup CoCoRaHS 1.5 NE 2.24"

Hobbs XL AWS 12.5 W 2.38"

Cila Norte HADS - SE El Paso 2.13"

Ruidoso CoCoRaHS 3.2 SW 2.02" 

Carrizozo NMCC 2.00"

Queen Raws 1.48"

Timberon CoCoRaHS 0.3 NNW 1.47"

High Rolls PWS 1.36"

Elk NWS Climate COOP Station 1.36"

Portales NWS Climate COOP Station 1.34"

Deming Municipal Airport 1.28"

Artesia NWS Climate COOP Station 1.01"

Hobbs Regional Airport .61"

Las Cruces NWS Climate COOP Station .51"

Carlsbad CoCoRaHS 2.1 NNW Downtown .49"

NMMI ES PWS - Downtown Roswell .34"

Loving High School NMCC .19"

Carlsbad Cavern Air City Terminal .18"

Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport .15"

Roswell Industrial Air Center Airport .14"

Bat Draw Raws - Carlsbad Caverns .08"

Artesia Municipal Airport .04"

Malaga NMCC .03"

Selected Highest Year-To-Date Rainfall Totals.

(Jan 1st - Sept 17th).

McNight Cabin Snotel - Gila Wilderness 25.00"

Silver Creek Divide Snotel -  Gila Wilderness 24.60"

Sierra Blanca Snotel - Near Ski Apache 24.10"

Pierce Canyon PWS - S of Cloudcroft 23.60"

Hopewell Snotel - SE of Chama 23.50"

Mogollon Raws -  Gila Wilderness 22.06"

Cloudcroft NWS Climate COOP Station 21.42"

Signal Peak Snotel - Gila Wilderness 20.30"

Smokey Bear Raws - Ruidoso 16.78"

Mayhill PWS - DW7680 16.48"

Bell Canyon PWS - NW of Mayhill 16.39"

Ruidoso NWS Climate COOP Station 15.36"

High Rolls PWS 14.89"

Mescal Raws - Mescalero 14.51"

Timberon CoCoRaHS 0.3 NNW 13.09"

Queen Raws 10.85"

Artesia NWS Climate COOP Station 9.60"

Carlsbad CoCoRaHS 2.1 NNW Downtown 8.73"

Hope CoCoRaHS 25.9 SSW 8.61"

Runyan Ranches NMCC 8.26"

Elk NWS Climate COOP Station 8.26"

Hope NMCC 4.9 W 7.34"

Alamogordo CoCoRaHS 2.4 NNE 7.32"

NMMI ES PWS - Downtown Roswell 7.18"

Carlsbad Cavern Air City Terminal 6.87"

Paduca Raws - Near WIPP 6.17"

Bat Draw Raws - Carlsbad Caverns 5.94"

Roswell Industrial Air Center Airport 5.90"

Hope NWS Climate COOP Station 5.49"

Seven Rivers/Lakewood NMCC 4.72"

Artesia Municipal Airport 4.56"

Loving High School NMCC 4.24"

Hobbs Regional Airport 2.97"

Malaga NMCC 2.60"

Additional Monthly and yearly rainfall totals are listed below. If viewing from Facebook, click on the blog link below to see them. 

Sadly, two adults and a child died in a flash flood Wednesday morning in the Northwestern New Mexico community of Newcomb. 

Flash Flood Watches continue in effect today for many counties in northwestern, northern, central, and southern New Mexico. And in the Sacramento Mountains. Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms will produce heavy rainfall that will lead to flash flooding in these areas. Rainfall rates of 1" to 2" per hour will be possible, with rainfall totals today through early Sunday morning over many areas in the 1" to 2" range, with locally higher amounts possible. Except for the northeastern part of the state. 

We get a break today across the southeastern plains, but scattered showers and thunderstorms return Friday and Saturday.  A few thunderstorms Saturday afternoon and evening will have the potential to be severe. Locally heavy rainfall may also produce localized flash flooding Friday and Saturday. Our high temps are forecast to remain in the low to mid 90's today into Sunday. 

Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms are forecast to continue over the Sacramento Mountains today into Saturday. Locally, heavy rainfall will produce localized flash flooding. Especially over and near the burn scar areas. 

In fact, as of 1:30 PM today, a Severe Thunderstorm Warning and a Flash Flood Warning are in effect for areas just northeast of Carrizozo in Lincoln County. And two Flash Flood Warnings remain in effect for Ruidoso. 

A more active pattern will return over the state the first of next week with another surge northward of subtropical monsoonal moisture from Mexico. A cold front may enter the picture and add to the mix, enhancing the risk for severe thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, and flash flooding over parts of the state early next week. 

Forecast models are getting a little beside themselves with their 7-day rainfall forecasts valid today through next Thursday. Generally, 1" to 3" storm totals are being forecast (see the rainfall forecast maps below) with pockets of 3" to 5" over the Sacramento mountains and southeastern plains. Given this is five to seven days away, I strongly suggest taking this with a huge grain of salt. Yes, a wet and cooler pattern is ahead for next week, but will that much rainfall is the million-dollar question that I can't be sure of this far out in time.  

Looking down the road by the middle of next week, the US GFS forecast model has the idea of a hurricane developing off the central Mexican coast and moving northward to the Baja Region by next weekend (10 days out). This could make life interesting in the Desert Southwest if the western upper-level trough of low pressure is able to latch onto its moisture and send it northeastward into our neck of the woods. Who knows, because this is just too far out to forecast with any accuracy. 

As we go forward in time to the end of the month and into October, El Niño will play more of a role in our weather as the subtropical jet stream becomes more active, as well as the polar jet stream. Fall could be really interesting this year.   

Long-range outlooks continue to hold fast to the idea of wetter-than-normal conditions across the state with warmer-than-normal temps. The 3-4 week outlook is showing normal temps for a change.  

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Midland/Odessa TX
138 PM CDT Thu Sep 17 2026

...New SHORT TERM, LONG TERM...

.KEY MESSAGES...
Updated at 123 PM CDT Thu Sep 17 2026

- Highs remain above normal through the weekend, but a gradual
  cooling trend brings temperatures closer to normal early next
  week.

- Rain chances begin to increase out west on Friday, then becoming
  more widespread this weekend. Heavy rainfall leading to
  localized flash flooding and gusty winds will be the main
  threats with the strongest storms.

&&

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service El Paso TX/Santa Teresa NM
1138 AM MDT Thu Sep 17 2026

...New DISCUSSION, AVIATION, FIRE WEATHER...


.KEY MESSAGES...
Updated at 1130 AM MDT Thu Sep 17 2026

 - This afternoon and tonight will see another round of
   thunderstorms that will move through the region with the best
   chances across southwest New Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley.
   Flood Watch remains in effect through Friday morning for those
   areas.

 - Scattered thunderstorms continue on Friday and Saturday, but
   the best chances for rain will shift east of the Rio Grande.
   Additional rain chances are expected next week as another surge
   of moisture arrives.

 - Typical mid-September temperatures into the weekend, with
   lowland highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s.

&&

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Albuquerque NM
230 PM MDT Thu Sep 17 2026

...New SHORT TERM, LONG TERM, FIRE WEATHER...

.KEY MESSAGES...
Issued at 230 PM MDT Thu Sep 17 2026

- A surge of rich monsoon moisture will continue to push into
  northern and central New Mexico through Friday, increasing the
  chances for showers and thunderstorms. This will introduce a
  risk of locally heavy rainfall and flash flooding, especially
  around urban areas, burn scars, and low water crossings today
  and Thursday.

- Water will begin to flow in normally dry arroyos, creeks,
  streams, and tributaries to mainstem rivers that have dried up
  this summer. Dirt roads will become muddy, and large areas of
  standing water may form in low-lying areas.

- Isolated strong storms each afternoon and evening this week
  could produce strong outflow wind gusts, wet microbursts, and
  small hail.

&&

Storm Prediction Center Severe Weather Outlook For Saturday.

European (ECMWF) 7-Day Rainfall Forecast.

(Valid Today Through 6 PM Thursday, Sept 24, 2026).

GFS 7-Day Rainfall Forecast.

(Valid Today Through 6 PM Thursday, Sept 24, 2026).

Weather Prediction Center 7-Day Rainfall Forecast.

(Valid Today Through Noon Thursday, Sept 24, 2026).

National Blend Of Models (NBM) 7-Day Rainfall Forecast.

(Valid Today Through 6 PM Thursday, Sept 24, 2026).

German ICON 7-Day Rainfall Forecast.

(Valid Today Through 6 PM Thursday, Sept 24, 2026).

MRMS 72-Hour Rainfall Totals.

(Valid At  10 AM MDT This THrusday Morning).

New Mexico MesoWest September Rainfall Totals.

(Sept 1st - Sept 17th, 2026). 

New Mexico CoCoRaHS September/Yearly Rainfall Totals.

(Sept 1st - Sept 17th, 2026). 

Climate Prediction Center Long-Range Outlooks.

The Underwater Volcano That Punched a Hole in the Sky

On January 15, 2022, an underwater volcano in the South Pacific erupted with a force the modern world had never recorded. In a single afternoon, Hunga Tonga reached out from under the ocean and touched the entire planet. This is the full story of the most powerful eruption of the 21st century. Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai is the top of a huge underwater mountain about 40 miles north of Tonga's main island. Almost all of it is hidden below the sea. That was the trap. A volcano in very deep water is usually smothered by the weight of the ocean, and one on dry land has no seawater to feed it. Hunga Tonga sat in the deadly middle, its vent only about 500 feet down, deep enough to draw in the sea and shallow enough to explode. When magma hotter than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit met cold seawater, the water flashed to steam and blew itself apart, again and again, in a runaway reaction. NASA scientists estimated the blast at around 10 megatons of TNT, hundreds of times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In about 30 minutes the plume climbed roughly 35 miles high, punching through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere, higher than any volcanic plume ever recorded, and it was the first eruption of this size ever watched live from space. The sound reached Alaska, more than 6,000 miles away, the loudest the planet had produced since Krakatoa in 1883. The atmospheric pressure wave circled the whole Earth four times in one direction and three in the other, seven laps in all, and the eruption generated nearly 600,000 lightning flashes in three days, at one point about half of all the lightning on the planet. Then the sea moved. Tsunami waves reached 66 feet on Tonga's coast, ran up nearly 150 feet on the island of Tofua, and may have towered close to 300 feet at the source. The air pressure wave pushed the ocean ahead of it, spawning waves in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean where a Pacific tsunami should never reach. On the seafloor, avalanches of rock and ash raced along the bottom at nearly 80 miles an hour, the fastest underwater flows ever recorded, and severed the single cable connecting Tonga to the internet. The country was cut off for five weeks, the disaster reached 85 percent of its people, and the waves drowned two more on a beach in Peru, nearly 7,000 miles away, setting off that country's worst oil spill. The eruption threw one more thing into the sky that no camera could show: water. It blasted enough seawater into the stratosphere to fill roughly 58,000 Olympic swimming pools, raising the water in that layer of the atmosphere by about 10 percent in an afternoon. Because water vapor traps heat, this one eruption may have nudged the Earth's surface temperature slightly upward, an effect scientists are still measuring today. Subscribe to Blues Below for ocean-exploration documentary essays on the deep sea, shipwrecks, ocean science, and the expeditions that go down into the dark. The ocean keeps its secrets. Chapters: 0:00 The Day the Ocean Exploded 1:28 The Sleeping Giant 3:52 The Blast 6:10 The Loudest Sound on Earth 8:27 The Wave 11:16 The Sky Remembers Sources and reference: NASA Earth Observatory and NASA JPL on the plume height and the stratospheric water vapor injection (Millan et al., Geophysical Research Letters, 2022); Proud et al., Science, 2022, on the mesosphere-reaching plume; Clare et al., Science, 2023, on the seafloor density currents; USGS and NOAA on the tsunami and atmospheric pressure wave; Vaisala on the record volcanic lightning. Satellite imagery courtesy NASA, NOAA, GOES and Himawari (public domain). Historical comparison: the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

You Want The Truth; You Can’t Handle The Truth!