It was a great start to the weekend with early spring warmth arriving and melting all the snow from Thursday. In its wake, our skies were mostly sunny this afternoon as temps rebounded into the lower 50s for the ABQ metro. Roswell was even milder with temps reaching 70°, but our warmth is just beginning this weekend. For tonight, with clear skies and calmer winds our lows will be quite chilly for western NM with lows settling a few degrees below average.

Saturday will feature mainly sunny skies with high temperatures warming another 5-10° with locally breezy conditions. Make some outdoor plans this weekend, as it’ll be the warmest in almost 4 months! The Rio Grande Valley could even approach 70° by Sunday afternoon. We’ll get there from stronger west/southwesterly wind gusts 35-50 mph for the eastern plains. This will raise red flag conditions by Sunday afternoon with the dry air and much stronger winds.

Heading into next week, we’ll hold onto the warmer than average temps but begin increasing the clouds. Eastern NM will battle consistent windy conditions each day. Later in the week, another storm will build across the west coast and Great Basin region. This storm will strengthen over the desert southwest and have some impacts for New Mexico. As of now, mountain snow/valley rain showers and cooler temperatures are the main impacts, along with some gusty winds.