Wintry weather to persist this week

Wintry weather will persist throughout New Mexico this week, with several storm systems that could bring rain, snow, wind and extremely cold temperatures.

Clay Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Albuquerque, said winds will be the major concern today. “Because of that, especially across eastern New Mexico, we could see some critical fire weather conditions,” Anderson said.

Today’s high temperature in Clovis-Portales is expected to top out near 60, with wind gusts up to 40 mph.

A strong backdoor cold front could bring precipitation to much of the state on Thursday.

“If you’re in the northern mountains, or along the Continental Divide, or especially the central mountain chain and areas immediately east, those are going to be the areas that could see significant impacts from snow and very cold temperatures,” Anderson said.

Eastern New Mexico is expected to have a low of 15 degrees and high of 48 on Thursday, with a chance of snow around 40% late Thursday evening and Friday morning. Forecasters weren’t sure about accumulations. “At the briefing from (National Weather Service), it sounded like (the storm system) would stay to the west and stay north,” said Dan Heerding, Clovis’ emergency management coordinator.

Chances for precipitation will begin dwindling Friday, but the cold temperatures will linger. Much of the state could drop as low as 20 to 30 degrees below normal.

Clovis’ forecast shows a low temperature of 18 degrees on Friday and high of 41.

Other parts of the state can expect wind chills below zero on Friday.

“It will be very, very cold Friday morning,” Anderson said. “We’re talking negative wind chills, with places like Red River and Angel Fire perhaps seeing -17, -20 in terms of wind chill values.”

Temperatures will begin to rebound this weekend, into the 60s on Saturday and near 70 by Sunday.

The Albuquerque Journal contributed to this report.