Rain today but drier on Independence Day

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Rainbows, rain showers, thunderstorms, and beautiful sunshine during sunset all at once enchanted much of The Land of Enchantment yesterday as conditions this morning have mostly calmed down while cooling off. Today will likely yield less thunderstorms across the region with higher afternoon temperatures as a result.

Lingering clouds with showers moving east in Catron County, with lightning strikes earlier, are becoming much less intense as batches of showers between Roswell to Carlsbad and Las Vegas to Tucumcari are more organized, but are also weakening. With a drier air-mass moving in from the northwest mountains, there’s a huge temperature contrast across the region, starting off in the high 40’s for some along the New Mexico-Colorado border to near the low 80’s for some in southeastern New Mexico.

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Drier air throughout much of the atmosphere, in the form of westerly winds, will continue to push the Monsoonal moisture to the southeastern half of the region as despite hotter and drier air in The Metro, an isolated shower to two may briefly form in the afternoon before rain activity moves eastward, becoming more organized along The Sandias. Most will reach the 80’s and 90’s today with some pockets of high 70’s in far-northern areas, while areas far to the south may reach 100 degrees.

The stubborn high pressure system that has been in place in Texas is moving far-enough east that drier air from The Northwest will push the moisture farther to the east across our area, but despite hotter and drier air for most, isolated pockets of flooding thunderstorms, mostly in eastern areas, will still be possible. While Mother Nature may produce fireworks of her own in Southeast New Mexico on 4th of July tomorrow, the rest of the region will be much sunnier, hotter, and drier. Then, a backdoor cold front later tomorrow night may up the rain chances this weekend.

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