textproduct: Albuquerque

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 1126 AM MDT Tue May 19 2026 - The threat of rapid fire spread becomes more isolated to the lower Rio Grande Valley and surrounding highlands today and Wednesday.

- Stray erratic and gusty winds from virga showers will impact a few spots across northwestern and north-central NM this afternoon.

- Overnight rain showers and patchy drizzle will give way to afternoon thunderstorm activity over eastern New Mexico Wednesday and Thursday.

SHORT TERM

(Today through Wednesday) Issued at 103 AM MDT Tue May 19 2026

While dry southwesterly winds remain over western NM, higher moisture alongside northeasterly to easterly winds resides through eastern NM into parts of the Rio Grande Valley bringing a nice change to the recent stretch of critical fire weather conditions.

The strong jetmax rounding an H5 low has ejected out over the Great Plains last night with a loitering H5 shortwave trough over UT/NV this morning. While dry southwesterly flow remains aloft over the Desert Southwest, winds will not be nearly as strong as what was observed Monday. Meanwhile, a potent cold front has backed southwestward across eastern NM bringing gusty northeasterly winds of 35 to 45 mph to areas from Clayton to Clovis overnight. This front will bring gusty easterly to southeasterly winds thru the gaps of the central mountain chain into Santa Fe and Albuquerque around sunrise this morning. Gusts of 25 to 35 mph can be expected before winds veer southerly by mid-day and afternoon, staying breezy to windy all afternoon. While most areas will remain dry, there is enough moisture to allow for isolated virga showers to develop over portions of the northwestern highlands along the Continental Divide into the Tusas and Jemez Mts late this afternoon. Stray and erratic gusty winds with little to no accompanying rainfall will be the main hazard from this, impacting outdoor activities in the area.

Tuesday night into Wednesday morning continues to see numerical model guidance advertising the aforementioned cold front through eastern NM which had been ushered back stage east toward TX/OK advance back westward thru the gaps of the central mountain chain into the Rio Grande Valley. With the loitering H5 shortwave still over UT and northern AZ, southwesterly flow aloft remaining over NM will again try to sharpen a dryline feature somewhere N-S along the central highlands Wednesday afternoon. There remains considerable forecast uncertainty regarding afternoon convective potential thru eastern NM. There is a clear demarcation between the moist continental airmass behind the aforementioned cold front and the moist maritime airmass associated with southerly return flow from the Gulf advecting northward into the Permian Basin and southeastern NM and the TX Panhandle. Thunderstorm activity is firing up along this sharp surface boundary over OK into the TX Panhandle this hour. However, this surface boundary will become more diffuse by Wednesday through eastern NM, and numerical model guidance has a wide range of latitudinal solutions of how far north/south the Gulf moisture reaches into eastern NM Wednesday. This yields two scenarios for many areas of east-central and southeastern NM regarding thunderstorm potential. One being the NAM solution which favors the more stable continental airmass further south with relatively lower Td's in the 40s with perhaps just a few stray showers and thunderstorms along a dryline immediately east of the central mountain chain. The second being a more convectively bullish scenario favored by the deterministic GFS where the warmer and more unstable Gulf moisture is further north into eastern NM allowing for scattered to potentially numerous thunderstorm activity first beginning along the dryline over the central highlands of NM before progressing eastward toward TX in the evening. In fact, the SPC has issued a conditionally marginal risk for strong/severe thunderstorm activity thru the southeastern quadrant of the state Wednesday afternoon. Bottom line, Wednesday's thunderstorm potential for eastern NM boils down to how far north the warm more unstable Gulf moisture can push.

LONG TERM

(Wednesday night through Monday) Issued at 103 AM MDT Tue May 19 2026

Outflow from any thunderstorm activity Wednesday evening will push low-level moisture back west to and thru the gaps of the central mountain chain again. Dry westerlies advance back east Thursday afternoon as the loitering H5 trough over UT finally gets escorted out of the area and moves along eastward over CO. This shifts any thunderstorm activity eastward along a sharpening dryline feature favored close to the TX border Thursday afternoon and evening. Friday sees continued dry conditions with lighter winds across western and central NM thanks to weaker flow aloft to the northeast of a 575dm H5 low over the northern Baja Peninsula. A cold front backing southward into northeastern NM from CO will advance thru eastern NM and up to the central mountain chain Saturday. With a ridge of high pressure building overhead, this will set the stage for daily rounds of afternoon thunderstorm activity favoring development along the central mountain chain first. Subsequent outflow boundaries look to initiate secondary convection later in the day and evening thru central and eastern NM, with moisture steadily increasing precipitation chances a bit further west each day into early next week.

AVIATION

(18Z TAFS) Issued at 1126 AM MDT Tue May 19 2026

Patchy MVFR cigs along the east slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mts will burn off thru 1pm. Gusty winds below canyons in the RGV late this morning will veer around to the south after 2pm with a 10-20% chance of wind gusts >40 mph between 4pm and 6pm. The main focus later this afternoon will be virga showers developing over the northern high terrain with wind gusts near 50 mph possible from Cuba to Los Alamos, Taos, Santa Fe, and Angel Fire. This activity will taper off after sunset. Low cigs and patchy fog will then return to eastern NM overnight. There is a 50-70% chance of MVFR cigs over east-central and northeast NM with a 20-40% chance of IFR.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 103 AM MDT Tue May 19 2026

While a cold front has brought a significant uptick in moisture alongside northeasterly winds veering southeasterly later today through eastern NM, drier southwesterly winds will remain along and west of the central mountain chain. The exception will be early this morning when the aforementioned cold front briefly surges thru the gaps of the central mountain chain into the middle Rio Grande Valley into Santa Fe and ABQ. Any low-level moisture increase from this will be quickly ushered back out by the increasing dry southwesterly winds. Prevailing winds will be considerably less than what was observed Monday, but still strong enough to combine with humidity falling below 10 percent to produce critical fire weather conditions into the middle Rio Grande Valley and nearby south-central highlands south of the Manzano Mountains for several hours this afternoon. This has warranted the issuance of a Red Flag Warning for the middle Rio Grande Valley this afternoon and early evening. A similar setup is favored Wednesday in this area, and yet another Red Flag Warning focused on the southern half of the middle Rio Grande Valley will have to be evaluated.

Eastern NM sees the aforementioned cold front bringing lower temperatures and higher humidity ushered back east toward TX this afternoon. The higher moisture advances west each night, getting ushered back east toward TX each afternoon today through Thursday. Any afternoon thunderstorm activity thru eastern NM will favor areas along a sharpening dryline, although there is considerable uncertainty regarding thunderstorm coverage Wednesday and Thursday afternoon.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

Farmington...................... 75 42 76 41 / 0 0 0 0 Dulce........................... 72 36 73 30 / 5 5 5 0 Cuba............................ 73 42 73 39 / 10 20 0 0 Gallup.......................... 74 35 73 34 / 0 0 0 0 El Morro........................ 74 40 71 40 / 0 0 0 0 Grants.......................... 79 41 77 39 / 5 5 0 0 Quemado......................... 76 42 74 41 / 0 0 0 0 Magdalena....................... 79 51 78 49 / 0 0 0 0 Datil........................... 75 46 73 45 / 0 0 0 0 Reserve......................... 79 39 78 38 / 0 0 0 0 Glenwood........................ 84 43 83 42 / 0 0 0 0 Chama........................... 66 35 66 33 / 20 20 5 0 Los Alamos...................... 73 50 72 49 / 10 20 10 5 Pecos........................... 71 43 70 43 / 5 5 30 40 Cerro/Questa.................... 68 42 69 41 / 30 40 20 0 Red River....................... 62 32 64 31 / 40 50 20 10 Angel Fire...................... 64 31 65 29 / 20 30 40 20 Taos............................ 74 40 73 36 / 20 20 20 5 Mora............................ 67 40 67 42 / 10 30 30 50 Espanola........................ 80 48 79 45 / 10 10 10 5 Santa Fe........................ 74 49 72 48 / 10 10 20 20 Santa Fe Airport................ 77 47 75 45 / 10 10 20 10 Albuquerque Foothills........... 83 56 82 53 / 5 5 5 0 Albuquerque Heights............. 84 54 84 50 / 5 5 5 0 Albuquerque Valley.............. 87 53 86 49 / 5 5 0 0 Albuquerque West Mesa........... 84 54 84 51 / 5 10 0 0 Belen........................... 86 51 86 47 / 0 0 0 0 Bernalillo...................... 85 53 84 50 / 5 10 5 0 Bosque Farms.................... 86 50 86 45 / 0 5 0 0 Corrales........................ 86 53 85 51 / 5 10 5 0 Los Lunas....................... 86 51 86 47 / 0 0 0 0 Placitas........................ 81 54 79 52 / 5 10 5 0 Rio Rancho...................... 85 53 84 51 / 5 10 0 0 Socorro......................... 88 56 88 53 / 0 0 0 0 Sandia Park/Cedar Crest......... 77 49 76 48 / 5 5 10 0 Tijeras......................... 81 46 79 44 / 5 5 10 0 Edgewood........................ 79 45 77 43 / 0 5 10 5 Moriarty/Estancia............... 80 42 77 40 / 0 5 10 5 Clines Corners.................. 72 44 68 44 / 0 10 30 20 Mountainair..................... 79 46 79 44 / 0 5 5 0 Gran Quivira.................... 78 47 78 45 / 0 5 5 0 Carrizozo....................... 82 53 81 52 / 0 0 5 0 Ruidoso......................... 76 50 74 50 / 0 5 20 5 Capulin......................... 62 36 59 39 / 5 20 10 60 Raton........................... 67 40 64 41 / 20 20 30 60 Springer........................ 69 42 65 43 / 5 20 20 60 Las Vegas....................... 67 42 64 44 / 0 20 30 60 Clayton......................... 66 42 60 46 / 0 10 20 70 Roy............................. 68 42 61 45 / 0 20 20 70 Conchas......................... 76 47 69 48 / 0 20 30 70 Santa Rosa...................... 76 47 68 47 / 0 20 40 50 Tucumcari....................... 77 48 71 49 / 0 10 40 60 Clovis.......................... 81 50 69 51 / 0 20 50 40 Portales........................ 83 50 71 50 / 0 20 50 40 Fort Sumner..................... 82 50 73 49 / 0 20 50 30 Roswell......................... 89 57 80 55 / 0 20 50 20 Picacho......................... 83 52 77 50 / 0 10 50 10 Elk............................. 84 49 81 48 / 0 5 30 0

ABQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

Red Flag Warning until 7 PM MDT this evening for NMZ106.