Heat wave has finally broken, chance of monsoon storms in the forecast every day

Early morning temperatures are once again a few degrees lower for most, continuing our trend of easing that heat after our prolonged very hot stretch. While a few spots of morning rain cannot be ruled out, most spots should be dry early in the day with just some patchy clouds around. Later this afternoon paired with a chance at scattered to isolated storms, high temperatures for most of us will only climb into the 80s and lower 90s, much more reasonable levels of heat! Southeast and East-Central New Mexico though could still be up around 100 degrees this afternoon, and that’s also where later-day storm chances will be lowest.

Friday looks to play out in a pretty similar fashion to today with a chance of scattered to isolated showers and storms forming through mainly the western and central part of the state and highs once again in the 80s to around 90 degrees for most. For the east and southeast though, highs will still be up around 100 degrees with only isolated rain and storm chances. Saturday will bring an increased chance of showers and thunderstorms to the eastern part of the state and also potentially to the Ruidoso area, so heavy rain on the Sacramento Mountains will be a concern for the first half of the weekend. Then on Sunday it looks like the area most-favored for storms will work to the north and west and potentially set up right over Central New Mexico and around Albuquerque.

Looking ahead to early next week, we are probably in for a decreasing storm trend, maybe not so much yet on Monday, but more so for Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Monday’s temperatures still look pretty reasonable, but by Tuesday and Wednesday – as monsoon storms are expected to become much more scarce – temperatures will likely take a step up both days. Highs back into the middle and even upper 90s will become possible again which will have us very close to record territory for the time of year.