FXUS65 KABQ 031115 AFDABQ Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Albuquerque NM 415 AM MST Tue Jan 3 2017 .SYNOPSIS... Generally quiet weather will prevail over most of northern New Mexico through Wednesday afternoon as northwest flow will dominate the region. Windy conditions are expected along the Central Mountain chain today with the strongest winds along the highest peaks. Winds will decrease tonight before increasing again on Thursday. A Pacific storm system will push into New Mexico starting Thursday night into Friday, bringing breezy conditions back to parts of the state with mountain snow and valley rain. && .DISCUSSION... Fairly quiet weather will persist through Thursday as northwest flow will continue over the region. Winds will remain elevated today along higher terrain with some of the higher peaks seeing gusts into the 40-50 mph range. Areal coverage of these winds was not widespread enough to warrant a Wind Advisory, but left the gust wording in the products. Some areas of light snow, mainly orographically driven, are expected over the north central mountains. Finally, some low clouds and fog will persist through mid-morning over the far northeast areas of the state. This area of low stratus and fog is showing up nicely on NASA SPoRT nighttime microphysics imagery from the NPP-VIIRS satellite and is verified by surface observations. This area may slide further south this morning into the KTCC area as the backdoor front will try to slide southward. The big change will be Thursday night into Friday as the upper low parked over the Pacific NW will slide southeastward and push through NM. The latest upper air data indicate that there is a very cold pool of temperatures aloft with this airmass with 00Z RAOB temps at 500mb in the -39 to -40 C range over Eastern WA and MT. As this cold airmass slides southward, a slug of moisture will move ahead of the system. The combination of the two will provide another shot at mountain snow and valley rain for the region starting Thursday night and tapering off late in the day Friday. This package is slightly less on snow amounts than the previous package, mainly due to minor differences in the QPF. US models are starting to trend toward the EC solution, which has been fairly consistent the last several days with this system. With respect to timing of the precipitation, the 00Z runs have the EC about 6 hours faster on the onset of the precip than the GFS/NAM. There is still some significant disagreement on temperatures with this system, with the EC bringing bitterly cold temperatures to the northeastern corner of NM Thursday morning. The GFS is trending that way, but not nearly as cold. At this time, held off on any major changes to the temps in the extended but later packages will have to likely bring forecast temps down over these areas. After this system, the weekend looks fairly quiet with mainly flurries over the northern mountains as zonal flow re-establishes itself over the region. 54/Fontenot && .FIRE WEATHER... High temperatures should fall around 5 to 20 degrees across northeast and east central areas today as a back door cold front sags into the area. The shallow front isn't expected to linger long, with rebounding temperatures expected there Wednesday. Zonal flow aloft will persist until a very positively tilted upper level trough aloft crosses from the northwest with increased precipitation chances and colder temperatures Thursday through Friday. The brisk flow aloft will cause breezy to windy conditions to persist across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains through mid day today. There will be a brief period of weaker winds tonight. Winds are then forecast to restrengthen across the Sangres Wednesday, as well as the northeast and east central highlands, due to stronger winds aloft and a developing lee trough. A moderately strong polar jet stream will cross the forecast area from the west on Thursday as the aforementioned upper level trough moves in from the northwest. This will induce breezy to windy conditions from the Central Mountain Chain westward. The jet will linger over the area Friday, when breezy to windy conditions should favor mountain areas, as well as the east slopes of the central mountain chain. Winds will weaken Friday night as a pronounced cold front drops southward through the state. The GFS is finally starting to catch up to the ECMWF and Canadian models on the Thursday/Friday system, but the ECMWF is still quite a bit cooler than the GFS. A model compromise would yield 700 mb temperatures around -14C from the Sangre de Cristos eastward, which would result in high snow ratios. Confidence is growing on a significant snow event for the northern mountains, where the potential exists for widespread snow accumulations of well over a foot. The northeast highlands and far northwest highlands may also do well with amounts possibly approaching a half foot, and lighter amounts elsewhere across the north. The snow should stay mostly north of I-40 until Friday, when accumulating snow may spread to central and southeast areas as the trough progresses southeastward. A strong back door cold front should produce high temperatures around 15 to 25 degrees below normal across eastern areas on Thursday. A strong Pacific front will also arrive from the northwest Thursday night into Friday with highs below normal areawide Friday and most places still on Saturday. A high pressure system will cross this weekend with drier weather and warming temperatures. Pockets of poor ventilation are expected today and Wednesday, before ventilation improvement with the stronger winds along and west of the central mountain chain on Thursday. However, broad coverage of poor ventilation is expected across the eastern plains with the cold temperatures on Thursday. After ventilation improvement most places Friday, widespread poor ventilation is expected Saturday into early next week. 44 && .AVIATION... 06Z TAF CYCLE Patchy MVFR/IFR conditions will affect NW/NC areas during the rest of the overnight hrs. FMN/GUP are the most likely candidates to receive these conditions for at least a brief period. Some SH will impact the mtns and create some mtn top obscurations during the next 24 hrs or so. Wind wont be quite as strong today compared to yesterday. Gusts around 25 kt expected at LVS/TCC. Back door cold front will impact the eastern plains rest of tonight with residual impacts into the day period. Wind speeds are not expected to be too strong with the frontal passage...more of a wind shift. 50 && .PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS... Farmington...................... 44 26 46 31 / 5 10 10 30 Dulce........................... 37 20 39 27 / 20 20 40 60 Cuba............................ 40 23 42 26 / 5 5 10 30 Gallup.......................... 44 25 48 28 / 5 5 0 20 El Morro........................ 43 23 46 26 / 5 5 0 10 Grants.......................... 46 23 50 27 / 0 5 0 10 Quemado......................... 47 26 52 29 / 0 5 0 5 Glenwood........................ 54 32 57 33 / 0 0 0 5 Chama........................... 36 14 37 20 / 30 20 50 70 Los Alamos...................... 41 27 43 30 / 5 5 0 20 Pecos........................... 43 27 45 27 / 5 0 0 10 Cerro/Questa.................... 36 17 37 19 / 10 5 20 40 Red River....................... 32 20 33 21 / 10 5 20 50 Angel Fire...................... 36 22 37 24 / 5 5 10 40 Taos............................ 40 20 42 23 / 5 5 10 30 Mora............................ 44 27 45 26 / 0 5 0 20 Espanola........................ 46 25 49 28 / 0 5 0 10 Santa Fe........................ 42 27 44 28 / 5 5 0 10 Santa Fe Airport................ 45 25 48 26 / 0 0 0 10 Albuquerque Foothills........... 48 30 50 31 / 0 0 0 5 Albuquerque Heights............. 50 31 52 33 / 0 0 0 5 Albuquerque Valley.............. 51 27 53 27 / 0 0 0 0 Albuquerque West Mesa........... 51 30 53 32 / 0 5 0 5 Los Lunas....................... 54 26 57 28 / 0 0 0 0 Rio Rancho...................... 50 30 52 31 / 0 5 0 5 Socorro......................... 55 31 59 32 / 0 5 0 0 Sandia Park/Cedar Crest......... 43 29 46 32 / 0 0 0 5 Tijeras......................... 46 28 48 32 / 0 0 0 5 Moriarty/Estancia............... 46 24 49 28 / 0 0 0 5 Clines Corners.................. 43 25 47 22 / 0 0 0 5 Gran Quivira.................... 47 30 50 31 / 0 0 0 0 Carrizozo....................... 52 32 55 33 / 0 0 0 0 Ruidoso......................... 50 31 53 31 / 0 0 0 0 Capulin......................... 39 17 44 9 / 0 0 0 5 Raton........................... 44 17 47 11 / 0 0 0 10 Springer........................ 46 18 50 14 / 0 0 0 10 Las Vegas....................... 50 24 52 19 / 0 0 0 5 Clayton......................... 36 15 42 7 / 0 0 0 0 Roy............................. 42 19 47 10 / 0 0 0 0 Conchas......................... 50 26 54 18 / 0 0 0 0 Santa Rosa...................... 54 32 58 20 / 0 0 0 0 Tucumcari....................... 50 23 55 16 / 0 0 0 0 Clovis.......................... 56 23 55 20 / 0 0 0 0 Portales........................ 58 26 56 19 / 0 0 0 0 Fort Sumner..................... 57 30 58 21 / 0 0 0 0 Roswell......................... 62 31 60 28 / 0 0 0 0 Picacho......................... 59 32 62 29 / 0 0 0 0 Elk............................. 55 34 60 31 / 0 0 0 0 && .ABQ WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ 54