Fire danger remains high through the weekend

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]It's going to be hot, though, after this weekend. It has been. It's been really warm. It feels kind of like we're just in full swing summer.

[00:00:07]>> I think we're done. Yeah, I think we're done with spring just and we're definitely >> to summer.

[00:00:10]>> Yep, that's where we're at, especially with these temperatures that for many of us are pretty typical of early to midsummer right now. We even had a few thunderstorms today out in the eastern part of the state yet again, but almost all of that rain evaporated before it reached the ground. Now, some thunderstorms in Union County likely brought some rain just around the Clayton area, especially with this stronger thunderstorm earlier. It was just west of there along Highway 412, maybe even dropped some small hail, some gusty winds are the main threat with a lot of these showers and thunderstorms out there, including this one north of Clayton now up in northern Union County cuz just like yesterday, a lot of the rain has been evaporating. Into southeastern New Mexico, those spotty showers and storms are already moving out. We've a few still around Clovis and Portales, but again, most of that is evaporating. We've also still been seeing some lightning strikes today and just like yesterday, the threat with those are any new potential wildfires wildfire starts across eastern New Mexico. So, that's again something we're going to have to keep a close eye on through the rest of this evening.

[00:01:09]Temperatures are up into the 80s and 90s across the state yet again this afternoon. The rain has cooled temperatures off, though, in Clayton down to 77 and we're 77 in Las Vegas as well. 78 up in Durango, but that's as cool as it gets here across New Mexico and southern Colorado. Los Lunas up to 91°, 80s across the rest of the metro.

[00:01:28]We're even up at 80 now in Sandia Park.

[00:01:31]Winds have been a little bit breezy at times. Roswell on that live camera there, the trees were shaking around quite a bit in the wind. Right now, gusts around 20 mph, but they're likely a little bit stronger than that. That evaporating rain in the thunderstorm had gusts over 50 mph up in Clayton earlier, where humidity is still at only 17%.

[00:01:47]It's as low as 3% right now in Silver City. We're going to hang on to some of that very dry air through the weekend.

[00:01:53]Red flag warning continues until 8:00 highlighting the highest fire danger area across the state, but that elevated fire danger extends to much of New Mexico today. It'll expand to more areas tomorrow as the wind starts to pick up and temperatures are going to get even hotter across New Mexico for some of us, but heading into Sunday, the jet stream will dip down over New Mexico bringing in some windier weather across the state Sunday afternoon. We could see 30 to 50 mph wind gusts across New Mexico.

[00:02:19]Temperatures are going to be a couple degrees cooler in the western and northern parts of the state, but it is still going to be hot on Sunday. So, you combine that it's going to bring in a high fire danger across much of New Mexico Monday. This cold front starts moving into the northwestern part of the state cooling temperatures down. May even bring in some rain into southern Colorado Monday afternoon, but the fire danger will still stick around Monday for New Mexico. Critical fire danger across the southeastern part of the state, but all of New Mexico is going to see an elevated fire danger Saturday and Sunday. And that critical fire danger expands to include more areas Sunday afternoon. It will move down into the southeastern part of the state on Monday as some cooler air and slightly higher humidity will move into the northwestern part of the state and southwestern Colorado on Monday afternoon. You can see that rain icon there Monday in Durango. Not looking too impressive right now, but it will definitely bring in some cooler temperatures. It's 62 will feel nice after the 80s we've been in for the last several days. Highs are also going to stay in the 80s through Sunday in Farmington and then cooling down briefly into the 60s on Monday.

[00:03:17]We'll also see some slightly cooler air work into southern New Mexico early next week, but the wind is still going to stick with us Monday afternoon for many areas. And then later next week increasing confidence of some spotty rain and thunderstorms chance will move into New Mexico Thursday and Friday. And with a little bit better moisture in place, you may actually see a little bit more rain actually make it to the ground later next week as well as temperatures do start warming up again heading into the second half of next week. After that little bit of a cool down we'll all see early next week that'll bring high temperatures closer to normal for this time of year, but tomorrow we're still going to be hovering right around 90° here in Albuquerque cooling down a few degrees on Sunday as the winds pick up Sunday and Monday afternoon. We'll be down to around normal again for this time of year Monday and Tuesday, then climbing back into the mid-80s again with a chance for a couple spotty sprinkles next Thursday.