textproduct: Albuquerque

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 1126 PM MDT Sat Apr 4 2026

- Freezing temperatures will occur once again tonight into early Sunday morning in a few valley locations, including Farmington, Santa Fe, Espanola, Moriarty, and Estancia. Folks should be prepared to protect plants, pets, and pipes from a damaging freeze event.

- Seasonable temperatures return with chances for showers and storms early next week. Main hazards will be gusty and erratic winds and dry lightning, which could lead to future fire starts. Low confidence exists for wetting rainfall.

SHORT TERM

(This evening through Sunday night) Issued at 154 PM MDT Sat Apr 4 2026

An upper low is moving into the Great Lakes region with surface high pressure building southward down the plains in its wake. This surface high brought colder temperatures to NM yesterday and last night, and today's temperatures are running slightly below normal in eastern zones. Bouts of high clouds will continue to stream over southern zones through tonight and into Sunday with chilly, but seasonable overnight readings tonight. A few more locations will dip below freezing again tonight, which is typical for this time of year, but certainly a change from the recent warm stretch prior to yesterday. No Freeze Warning will be issued, given readings will not be as cold as what was observed earlier this morning. Breezes will remain light to moderate for the most part Sunday, except in northeastern zones where gusts will be a bit stiffer, reaching 30 to 35 mph. Through the day Sunday, faint moisture begins to make an attempted run into southern NM via southeasterly surface winds and a spoke of mid level moisture advertised in 700-500 mb layer RH progs. Any shower or thunderstorm activity associated with this feeble moisture increase will tend to stay over Mexico and southern NM with low 10-20% chances that they breach our southern border Sunday afternoon. POPs have been limited to this 10-20% range with a dry thunder mention, as high LCL's and a deep, dry boundary layer will limit measurable rainfall prospects. However, any showers or storms farther south could aid in moisture transport northward Sunday night through Monday morning.

LONG TERM

(Monday through Friday) Issued at 154 PM MDT Sat Apr 4 2026

Any moisture that can creep up farther into western NM early Monday morning will set the stage for more isolated, dry storms to develop in the afternoon, and low 10-20% POPs have been built into the forecast. Forecast soundings still indicate anything will initially be very high-based during the afternoon, but through the evening the boundary layer is modeled to moisten up from nearby showers and storms with western areas seeing a slight expansion of measurable rain prospects (to 30% chances). Gusty south winds would redevelop in the northeastern zones Monday with speeds similar, if not slightly stronger, than those observed on Sunday. High temperatures Monday would remain fairly seasonable, still just slightly below in a few southeastern zones.

A weak shortwave trough will be upstream in AZ on Monday, gradually crossing into NM late Monday night and early Tuesday. This feature is not very dynamic with minimal baroclinicity and not much evidence of a thermal trough aloft per isothermal analysis. However, LI's do decrease more, indicating more instability into Tuesday, even well behind (west) of the departing trough axis that would move into far eastern NM by late day Tuesday. Conceptually, this does not look like an ideal precipitation setup, but synoptic scale models increase the coverage of QPF slightly, and the NBM has a big jump for Tuesday. Have scaled these back, but northern mountain zones have still been given likely (60%) POPs with graduated reductions to scattered coverage (30-50%) elsewhere.

A flattening ridge would then move across NM Tuesday night into Wednesday with drier air arriving amid the zonal flow. A few high- based virga showers would be possible Wednesday afternoon, but the prospects for measurable rain would reduce significantly while temperatures boost several degrees above normal. Into the latter part of the week, attention will turn to an upstream low pressure system offshore of CA. This would start to spread stronger southwesterlies aloft into NM while return flow from the Gulf advects moisture to west TX and portions of eastern NM. This would introduce the potential for our seasonal dryline to start developing which would of course trigger afternoon and evening convection should instability parameters align and juxtapose. For now, NBM covers the east with 10 to 30% POPs on Thursday, increasing to 30- 50% on Friday, far too high and conflicting with its 20-30 degree F dewpoints.

AVIATION

(06Z TAFS) Issued at 1126 PM MDT Sat Apr 4 2026

VFR conditions will prevail for the next 24 hours. High clouds will continue to pass over the southern half of the area through the overnight hours. On Sunday afternoon, southerly winds will increase along and east of the Central Mtn Chain with gusts near 30kt across northeast NM, and near 20 to 25 kt elsewhere, including KROW. Increasing moisture across southern areas will allow mid level clouds to develop by Sunday afternoon, with virga or very light showers developing across the Southwest Mountains. These showers will be capable of gusty and erratic winds. These showers will diminish Sunday evening. Winds will also weaken Sun eve across eastern NM, except across far NE NM where gusty winds will persist through the overnight hours.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 154 PM MDT Sat Apr 4 2026

There are currently no widespread areas of critical fire weather forecast, but as we march ahead farther into April, there will likely be several days with elevated, marginal, or near-critical conditions for portions of the forecast area.

Light to moderate breezes will prevail this afternoon through the early evening with western NM zones observing the lowest humidity of 8 to 15%. Faint moisture increases late Sunday will yield a few high- based virga showers or perhaps a stray dry thunderstorm over southwestern NM. These showers and storms will produce a localized gusty wind threat. Meanwhile prevailing winds are forecast to be a bit stronger Sunday afternoon in northeastern NM where gusts may occasionally hit 30 to 35 mph, enough for marginal or spotty critical conditions where humidity will also be hovering near the 15% criteria. Showers and dry thunderstorms expand over the western half of NM into Monday, increasing the dry lightning and gusty convective gust threat there. A repeated round of windy conditions in northeastern zones will once again produce another marginal or spotty threat for critical conditions Monday afternoon. No Watches are planned for Sunday or Monday, but forecast trends will be monitored closely.

A better shot of measurable, but not necessarily soaking, rainfall arrives Tuesday as a weak trough aloft crosses. Humidity trends up on Tuesday due to the increased shower and storm activity, but the lightning and new ignition threat will linger. Prevailing winds will again be gusty (gusts of 30 to 35 mph) in east central to northeastern NM Tuesday. Drier, warmer, and breezy conditions then return on Wednesday. By late in the week, the pattern shifts to one potentially defined by the surface dryline, separating dry, warm, and breezy conditions to the west and moist and perhaps stormy conditions to the east.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

Farmington...................... 32 71 41 71 / 0 0 0 5 Dulce........................... 22 68 28 67 / 0 0 0 10 Cuba............................ 30 64 33 64 / 0 0 0 5 Gallup.......................... 23 70 32 69 / 0 5 0 10 El Morro........................ 26 66 36 65 / 0 5 5 10 Grants.......................... 24 68 33 67 / 0 0 0 10 Quemado......................... 28 67 38 66 / 0 10 5 20 Magdalena....................... 35 65 38 63 / 0 10 5 10 Datil........................... 29 63 36 62 / 0 10 5 20 Reserve......................... 31 70 31 68 / 0 20 10 20 Glenwood........................ 38 74 34 71 / 0 10 5 20 Chama........................... 24 61 29 61 / 0 0 0 20 Los Alamos...................... 37 63 39 63 / 0 0 0 5 Pecos........................... 30 62 31 64 / 0 0 0 5 Cerro/Questa.................... 28 61 32 63 / 0 0 0 20 Red River....................... 22 52 28 54 / 0 0 0 20 Angel Fire...................... 13 57 19 60 / 0 0 0 10 Taos............................ 24 65 28 67 / 0 0 0 10 Mora............................ 27 60 30 63 / 0 0 0 5 Espanola........................ 32 70 36 70 / 0 0 0 5 Santa Fe........................ 34 64 37 65 / 0 0 0 5 Santa Fe Airport................ 32 67 34 67 / 0 0 0 5 Albuquerque Foothills........... 41 70 44 68 / 0 0 0 0 Albuquerque Heights............. 42 71 42 70 / 0 0 0 0 Albuquerque Valley.............. 34 73 39 72 / 0 0 0 0 Albuquerque West Mesa........... 39 71 42 70 / 0 0 0 0 Belen........................... 37 73 37 71 / 0 0 0 0 Bernalillo...................... 37 72 40 71 / 0 0 0 0 Bosque Farms.................... 35 73 35 71 / 0 0 0 0 Corrales........................ 37 72 40 71 / 0 0 0 0 Los Lunas....................... 37 73 36 71 / 0 0 0 0 Placitas........................ 38 69 42 68 / 0 0 0 0 Rio Rancho...................... 39 72 43 70 / 0 0 0 0 Socorro......................... 41 73 41 70 / 0 5 5 5 Sandia Park/Cedar Crest......... 35 64 38 64 / 0 0 0 0 Tijeras......................... 36 66 39 66 / 0 0 0 0 Edgewood........................ 30 66 35 67 / 0 0 0 0 Moriarty/Estancia............... 27 67 24 67 / 0 0 0 0 Clines Corners.................. 31 61 31 63 / 0 0 0 0 Mountainair..................... 31 65 32 65 / 0 5 5 0 Gran Quivira.................... 34 65 31 65 / 0 5 5 0 Carrizozo....................... 40 66 36 65 / 0 10 10 0 Ruidoso......................... 30 56 32 58 / 0 10 10 5 Capulin......................... 26 62 33 65 / 0 0 0 5 Raton........................... 26 66 28 69 / 0 0 0 5 Springer........................ 27 67 29 70 / 0 0 0 5 Las Vegas....................... 29 61 29 64 / 0 0 0 0 Clayton......................... 35 68 41 71 / 0 0 0 0 Roy............................. 32 65 34 66 / 0 0 0 0 Conchas......................... 34 72 34 73 / 0 0 0 0 Santa Rosa...................... 33 67 33 69 / 0 0 0 0 Tucumcari....................... 35 73 38 74 / 0 0 0 0 Clovis.......................... 37 69 36 71 / 0 0 0 0 Portales........................ 35 70 34 72 / 0 0 0 0 Fort Sumner..................... 36 70 33 70 / 0 0 0 0 Roswell......................... 41 70 39 70 / 0 5 5 0 Picacho......................... 37 63 35 65 / 0 5 5 0 Elk............................. 34 59 31 62 / 0 10 5 0

ABQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.