textproduct: El Paso

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 511 AM MDT Fri Aug 14 2026

- Widely scattered showers and thunderstorms will lift into Far West Texas late tonight into early Friday morning.

- Thunderstorm activity will largely be focused over SW New Mexico tomorrow. Highly localized flooding possible.

- An upper low traversing northern Mexico through the weekend will favor an uptick in thunderstorms east of the Continental Divide on Saturday, and west of the Divide on Sunday. - Another dry and warmer spell is on the way for early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1028 PM MDT Thu Aug 13 2026

It was a little more active today, at least over the Gila Region in terms of convection, but fairly quiet everywhere else. Now we're faced with a very similar scenario to last night. A very weak outflow boundary is once again drifting across El Paso, though without sparking off any little renegade showers. Widely scattered storms are present across Chihuahua just south of Ahumada, and several CAMS runs show shower and isolated thunderstorm activity again drifting north into parts of El Paso and Hudspeth Counties in the wee hours, after about 1-2 AM. The RRFS members have a little more consistency than usual, and they favor pulling precip up a little further to the west than recent HRRR runs, clipping eastern El Paso, and perhaps maintaining clouds and light showers or sprinkles for a couple hours after sunrise. Once again played the PoPs very close to ELP, with slight chance PoPs (20 percent) generally over the west side, and ramping up to about 40-50 in the far east side of town. Better chances (60 percent) will be over east El Paso County into far western Hudspeth.

Water vapor imagery and upper air analysis shows a broad upper tropospheric low centered over northeastern Mexico, with a closed low even showing up down to about 500 mb. It fits conceptual models pretty nicely, with mid-level westerlies kicking off an MCS in northern Sinaloa, aided by upper level divergence well west of the low. A tongue of mid-level dry air extends across the Arklatex region down towards the lower Pecos valley, and another area of diminishing convection extends from eastern Chihuahua up through the Trans-Pecos region...in the vicinity of a weak surface trough and an ill-defined PV anomaly around the 345K level, where you'd expect it to be in relation to the upper low.

Meanwhile, mid-level southwesterly flow continues to stream moisture from the Sierra Madres up into the area. But the uptick in PWAT values has mostly gone to waste due to a lack of forcing and so-so instability (skinny CAPE profiles, and a bit of CIN if you consider the mixed layer as a parcel starting point).

So really, the main driver the next few days will be that upper tropospheric low. But it will be crawling west overnight, with the favored area for convection setting up nearly in the same spot in "near west" Texas tomorrow. Convective debris and stabilization from any overnight showers and storms should quash precip chances in and around El Paso tomorrow. Further west, we'll see a near repeat of today around the Gila and maybe a few storms down in the Bootheel.

Saturday is the most favorable day as the upper low drifts into Coahuila. The PV anomaly band drifts into areas east of the Rio Grande, just behind a high-level deformation zone. Essentially the favored area just to our east will finally drift over us. A bit of low level SE flow will help top-off the low level moisture levels a bit. Expect widespread, "beefier" convection over the Sacramento Mountains Saturday afternoon, and a secondary focus over the Black Range, with NE to SW storm motions favoring outflow convergence in the lowlands during the evening. Not everyone will see rain, obviously, but coverage will be greater than the past several days.

Sunday, we'll have to deal with convective debris and stabilizationconcerns, especially east of the Divide. The upper low will barely inch into eastern Chihuahua, focusing the better upper level support for storms over SW New Mexico. Some drier mid- level air will work into eastern areas, but the dry tongue will be slowly filling in a bit. 500 mb temps will climb from around -6C Saturday to -4C Sunday over eastern areas too, further supporting a dropoff in convection chances east of the Divide for Sunday.

The upper low, or perhaps weakened into an inverted trough, will pass just to our south Sunday night, usually the least-favored region for upper support. Sometimes the backside of these things can bring another uptick, but the inverted trough looks to dampen out for Monday.

We'll still be in monsoonal easterly flow aloft, but the subtropical ridge will be sprawling back to the west again, with some warmer/drier air working in as well. This favors a downtick in convection chances early next week, with temperatures attempting to tick back up towards the 100 degree mark in the lowlands again. Perhaps some relief mid-week as a weak trough tries to drop down the eastern edge of the ridge? Long way to go.

AVIATION

(12Z TAFS) Issued at 511 AM MDT Fri Aug 14 2026

Moisture is on the increase today, but still nothing to kick storms off, so like the last few days, most of the thunderstorms will be confined to area mountains, with just a few storms in the lowlands. Winds will be light today, except for outflow winds which can travel great distances from their parent thunderstorms. We may see some high ceilings this morning, but by the afternoon we could see some mid ceilings from time to time. Better chances for thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon and evening.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 511 AM MDT Fri Aug 14 2026

We will continue to see lower fire weather concerns through the weekend with increasing moisture. Best chances for rain today will be in area mountains, but then for Saturday we will see better rain chances across the region, before things start to dry back out for the start of next week. Min RH's today through Sunday will be at or above 20%. We will see near average high temperatures through Saturday, but then upper level high pressure returns for the start of next week and that will drive our high temperatures back above average.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

El Paso 73 98 73 98 / 20 40 40 0 Sierra Blanca 66 93 65 92 / 30 50 20 10 Las Cruces 67 96 68 96 / 20 40 30 10 Alamogordo 69 95 69 95 / 20 60 10 20 Cloudcroft 52 72 52 72 / 20 80 20 50 Truth or Consequences 69 95 70 95 / 20 20 10 20 Silver City 60 89 62 89 / 20 20 10 50 Deming 67 97 68 97 / 20 20 10 30 Lordsburg 66 95 68 96 / 10 10 0 30 West El Paso Metro 74 98 74 97 / 20 40 40 0 Dell City 70 97 69 97 / 20 30 10 0 Fort Hancock 74 99 73 99 / 20 40 20 10 Loma Linda 67 90 67 90 / 20 60 40 0 Fabens 72 98 71 98 / 20 40 30 0 Santa Teresa 71 96 71 96 / 20 40 40 0 White Sands HQ 72 96 72 96 / 20 50 30 0 Jornada Range 68 96 69 96 / 20 50 20 10 Hatch 68 99 69 99 / 20 30 20 20 Columbus 72 97 72 97 / 20 30 20 10 Orogrande 68 94 67 94 / 20 60 20 10 Mayhill 57 84 56 83 / 20 80 20 30 Mescalero 56 83 55 83 / 20 80 20 50 Timberon 54 82 53 82 / 20 80 20 30 Winston 57 86 59 87 / 30 20 10 40 Hillsboro 64 93 66 94 / 20 30 20 40 Spaceport 66 95 67 96 / 20 40 10 20 Lake Roberts 54 87 57 88 / 20 20 10 60 Hurley 62 92 64 92 / 20 20 10 40 Cliff 63 95 65 96 / 10 10 0 40 Mule Creek 61 90 63 93 / 20 10 0 30 Faywood 63 91 65 92 / 20 20 10 40 Animas 67 93 68 96 / 10 20 10 30 Hachita 67 94 68 95 / 20 20 10 30 Antelope Wells 66 93 67 94 / 20 20 20 30 Cloverdale 64 88 64 90 / 10 20 10 30

EPZ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...None. NM...None.