900 FXUS65 KABQ 242350 AAA AFDABQ Area Forecast Discussion...UPDATED National Weather Service Albuquerque NM 550 PM MDT Sat Jun 24 2017 .AVIATION... 00Z TAF CYCLE Low clouds lifting and dissipating across the east this evening. However, showers and thunderstorms will likely form across the east during the night along with low clouds and some fog. MVFR to VFR CIGS and VSBYS for KLVS, KTCC and KROW...maybe KSAF. VFR elsewhere. Tempo group for showers this evening in KSAF and KLVS this evening. Not enough confidence yet to put in KTCC or KROW. Very active Sunday with widespread SHRA and TSRA resulting in brief MVFR to IFR CIGS and VSBYS. Locally heavy rain. && .PREV DISCUSSION...244 PM MDT Sat Jun 24 2017... .SYNOPSIS... An active weekend thanks to the potent back door front that worked its way all the way west across NM last night and this morning. Showers and thunderstorms will become widespread by the evening and should continue well into the night. A few of the storms will be severe. Even more active Sunday, with the most coverage and greatest threat for severe weather. Monday will be almost as active. The upper high centered over northern Sonora will drift southwest to Baja, CA this weekend and early next week. Meanwhile short wave troughs going by to our north will carve out westerly flow across NM as we go through next week, bringing a drying and warming trend back to the state. A back door cold front late in the week could bring a return o more moist conditions again next weekend, at least in the east. && .DISCUSSION... And we are off! Storms firing over the west central and southwest mountains with a severe storm in northeast Catron County...in the middle of no where. The northwest has mixed out with hot and dry conditions for Gallup and Farmington again today. But cooler and more moist air exists elsewhere with widespread showers and thunderstorms forming through the afternoon and evening from the western mountains toward the eastern plains. A few storms will be severe. The east remains a mystery for tonight with most models generating a wave or two of showers and storms in the northeast and east central zones. Some even generate an impressive CMS over the northeast that drifts south through the late night into Sunday morning generating copious amounts of rain. Still pretty stable over the east owing to stubborn low clouds. They are thinning though, and feel the east will destabilize this evening, so have increased POPS over the northeast and east central plains for tonight. Hard to argue with 7 or 8 models all showing the same scenario. Most active day with the best shot at severe storms will be Sunday for all but the far northwest, which will remain hot and dry. With northwest flow aloft and southeast winds at the surface, plenty of shear will exist to help create long lived storms. Lots of low and mid level moisture and a very unstable atmosphere will also support widespread convection with heavy rain, large hail and potentially damaging wind gusts the main threats. Monday will be similar to Sunday, but probably not quite as active. A noticeable drying and warming trend will follow for Tuesday and Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday dry and hot again. Models head in different directions after that. GFS and ECMWF do both have a back door front into the east Friday night with cooler and wetter conditions possible next weekend in the east. The GFS then builds a ridge of high pressure centered over over AZ/NM border with dry and warm conditions heading toward the 4th of July. Meanwhile the ECMWF has the high over southeast TX. And you know what means this time of year? Yes, monsoon moisture into the desert southwest! The bulk of it looks to invade AZ, aided by a weak closed low off Baja, CA. We are talking 8 to 10 days away though, and much could change. So, stay tuned! CHJ && .FIRE WEATHER... Humidities will continue to trend upward through Sunday as a moist low level flow persists out of the southeast. The cool airmass behind last evening's back door cold front will modify/warm, allowing greater instability to develop. Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms are expected Sunday as cells develop over the mountains then spread southeastward across the lower elevations including much of the eastern plains. A few strong to severe storms are again expected Sunday afternoon and night. Most of the area along and east of the central mountain chain, as well as the southwest mountains, stands a good chance of wetting precipitation Sunday afternoon and night as a shortwave trough in northwest flow aloft organizes storms into clusters and lines. Parts of the east could see around 1 inch of precipitation. Wetting precip will be spottier in the central valley, and as far northwest as the continental divide. Humidities will then trend downward Monday, and especially Tuesday and Wednesday, as the low level flow gradually veers out of the south and eventually the west in response to an upper level trough crossing the northern and central Rockies. Thunderstorm coverage will trend downward as well, especially Tuesday when storms should favor the north central and southwest mountains, and Wednesday which looks dry. The trough passing north of NM will strengthen the flow aloft and work with a stout surface trough in the lee of the Sangre de Cristo Range to make surface winds breezy on Tuesday, and to a lesser extent Wednesday, across the west central and northwest plateau, as well as the northeast and east central plains. Humidities will bottom out near and below 10% across northwest areas Tuesday, and across most of the fire weather forecast area on Wednesday. Northwest, north central and central parts of the forecast area will also have poor humidity recoveries Tuesday night through Thursday night. These dry conditions will then persist until a moist back door cold front pushes into the eastern plains on Friday. Haines indices will reflect the drier conditions with mostly values of 6 across northwest areas Tuesday, then also much of the east Wednesday and Thursday. Some locally critical fire weather conditions are forecast west of the continental divide on Tuesday, and east of the central mountains Wednesday. 44 && .ABQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ |