Near-record heat returns to New Mexico this week

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]And temperatures are only going to keep getting hotter heading into tomorrow afternoon. Today, enjoy the 70s in Roswell because we're going to be making a run for 100 degrees tomorrow afternoon. And it looks like that kind of heat may be sticking around for about the next week or so across the state with mostly dry conditions. A little bit breezy down in Roswell with gusts around 20 miles hour. And that's also going to be the story for the next few days.

[00:00:25]We're going to be looking at a couple afternoon breezes out there, but not seeing overly windy conditions. And this time of year, that's really good news.

[00:00:33]Temperatures this afternoon are up into the mid 80s for most of the western half of New Mexico. We're sitting at 81 here in Albuquerque. It's 85 though up in Farmington and 81 up in Cortez, Colorado. Hovering around 80 in Santa Fe and TA. Eastern New Mexico, mid 80s from Santa Rosa to Toum carrying around 80 degrees into the northeastern part of the state. For those in that part of New Mexico, this is about 15 to 20 degrees warmer than normal for this to or I should say 24 hours ago is warmer than 24 hours ago. Into southeastern parts of the state, we're hovering in the upper 70s right now. Temperatures in the metro, we're hovering right around 80° here most of Albuquerque, but it gets as warm as 87 in the South Valley and Los Lunis to the mid 80s up in Rio Rancho Bernalo and 70s out on the West Mesa and into the East Mountains. Again, not looking at overly windy conditions, so that's the really good news. But there are a couple breezy spots, and again, that's going to be the story for the next few days. We also have sunny and mostly sunny skies across the entire state. Tomorrow, though, high pressure is going to be settling right over New Mexico tomorrow afternoon. That what's going to happen with that is it's going to cause the air to sink. So, it pushes down on the air. And when you compress the air, it causes it to heat up. And that's what we're going to see tomorrow afternoon. hotter temperatures, sunny skies as well because sinking air also doesn't allow clouds to form for the most part. And that's going to bring in some of the hottest weather we've seen so far this year. Tying with how hot it was in March, if you remember that.

[00:02:00]Again, to put it into perspective, this heat is still hot for May. Remember when we had it back in March, we're going to get up into the 90s here in Albuquerque.

[00:02:07]And it's not going to be our first 90°ree day of the year. That was back in March, actually setting the earliest 90°ree day ever recorded here in Albuquerque. Typically, we don't see 90° until May 26. So, even tomorrow, it's still going to be a little bit earlier than normal. Tomorrow's forecast high is 91° here in Albuquerque. And that will bring in some heat related impacts, especially for these areas in orange.

[00:02:31]You start getting into that moderate category. This is tomorrow, so it's the Rio Grande Valley. Then we head into Wednesday, and that'll expand across more of eastern New Mexico, even into Thursday. And what we mean by that moderate heat impact, if you have to be outdoors, drink plenty of water, take some break from the sun and apply the sunscreen too all across New Mexico if you are going to be outside because it is going to be hot with highs staying around 80° for the next week or so in Durango, even getting up to 88 degrees tomorrow. Highs will be around 90 from Farmington to Gallup and Grants. And temperatures are going to stay in the mid 90s for the next week or so across southwestern New Mexico. Now, high pressure does slide off to the east on Wednesday, and that will bring up some moisture, enough to produce widespread cloud cover across the state, but that's not going to be enough to cool us off a lot. Maybe only a couple degrees cooler with high around 97 still in Roswell.

[00:03:18]This weekend, we're going to be up to around 100° again down there. So, the heat, it's sticking around even with some breezy winds at times. The fire danger is not going to be overly high.

[00:03:28]Might be a little bit elevated here and there, but the good news is we're not looking at overly strong winds. With these warm temperatures and dry conditions, we may see a couple spotty sprinkles in northern New Mexico on Wednesday, but the bigger concern are going to be some dry thunderstorms as that rain evaporates before it reaches the ground. Lightning could spark new wildfires on Wednesday. But again, thankfully the winds are going to stay relatively light over the next several days for this time of year. But we may still be a couple breezy afternoons here and there as temperatures in the metro will climb into the 90s tomorrow. And highs are going to hover around 90° all the way through this