Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
There is a chance of snow heading this way, along with freezing temperatures, fog, and gusty winds. Predicted are some of the coldest temperatures for the state since 2011, according to the National Weather Service.
“Widespread winter weather is looking more likely across the region Friday through Sunday,” a hazardous weather outlook warning from the National Weather Service on Tuesday said.
Today and tomorrow an arctic airmass will move into eastern New Mexico, causing decreasing temperatures through Monday.
High temperatures for Clovis and the surrounding areas are 63 degrees today, 60 degrees tomorrow, 39 degrees on Friday, 26 degrees on Saturday, 15 degrees on Sunday, with a slight increase on Monday with 25 degrees. After that temperatures should begin to rise back to the low 50s.
Low temperatures for the area are forecasted to hit 34 degrees tonight, 28 degrees tomorrow night, 20 degrees Friday night, 15 degrees Saturday night, 2 degrees Sunday night, and 6 degrees Monday night.
These drastic drops are due to the arctic air mass colliding with two storm systems from the Pacific as they make their way across the state.
“Why all the cold and snow? A fading La Nina has left the EPAC completely void of tropical and sub-tropical convection, leaving the East Asian Jet (EAJ) to encounter much weaker temperature gradients aloft as it translates eastward. This forces the jet to split (become super-geostrophic) and develop a ridge/high over the Gulf of AK. If a split like this lasts long enough, a cold and snowy pattern for NM can be the result,” a meteorologist for the NWS in Albuquerque wrote in the forecasters discussion.
As a result, the area has a 20% chance of snow Friday through Saturday, a 60% chance on Sunday, and another low chance on Monday. The NWS has forecasted blizzard conditions for areas in northern New Mexico, and while eastern parts of the state are unlikely to see that much snow there is hope for more precipitation.
Freezing fog swept through Clovis Tuesday morning as a precursor to the chilling weather to be seen later this week.
In preparation for the upcoming cold fronts, the lowest high temperature so far for this fall-winter was 25 degrees on Oct. 27 according to the Agriculture Science Center at Clovis. The coldest temperature so far for this fall-winter was 9 degrees reported on Jan. 12 and Dec. 31. These records for the year should be easily broken by Sunday.
