Today is calm, quiet, and warmer…a great final Friday of February and meteorological winter. Overnight lows will be relatively mild, especially south of I-40 where most locations won’t drop below freezing. Further north it will be colder, but not frigid as cloud coverage will insulate the state overnight.
Tomorrow the clouds will stick around as the jet stream remains southwesterly. The southwesterly breezes will bring warmer weather into the state Saturday afternoon with highs above average. Breezes may begin to pick up as well, ahead of our next storm system that will arrive Sunday morning.
Sunday’s storm will once again bring strong to damaging wind gusts across the state, especially south. A High Wind Watch is in effect across the entire southern and eastern parts of New Mexico, including the Albuquerque metro, with possible gusts 65-75 mph. Mountain snow is expected north and west, with valley rain and snow chances as well. Timing of the storm is slightly uncertain…if it moves in early, there is better potential for the metro to see snow but if it moves in later in the day, warmer temperatures won’t allow much snow to fall farther south/east. Temperatures will cool down significantly after the cold front passage as well by late Sunday. Windy weather is expected to stick around into early next week.
