The springtime winds combined with very dry air add up to the critical fire conditions expected this week, National Weather Service forecaster Clay Anderson told KOAT.”We have issued a fire weather watch, but we are drawing attention to some critical fire weather conditions that we believe are going to develop on Wednesday and Thursday,” Anderson said.April is usually the windiest month in New Mexico, especially toward the end of the month, Anderson said. There are signs that most of the state could be impacted, but the greatest fire danger most likely will be in the far northwest and northeast areas.”The key ingredient in this whole process is the really dry antecedent conditions that we have,” Anderson said. “The vegetation is dry. It’s continuing to dry out — it’s actually getting drier with time. We don’t need a whole lot of wind, so if the forecast turns up a little bit, we may issue the wind advisories on top of the anticipated fire weather watch and red flag warnings that we’ll be issuing.”Anderson said that unless there’s a lot of precipitation, we can expect these dry, windy conditions to continue through May and into June.”We do have some confidence that we could get into some higher humidity and perhaps some precipitation,” Anderson said. “Keep your fingers crossed on that.”
The springtime winds combined with very dry air add up to the critical fire conditions expected this week, National Weather Service forecaster Clay Anderson told KOAT.
“We have issued a fire weather watch, but we are drawing attention to some critical fire weather conditions that we believe are going to develop on Wednesday and Thursday,” Anderson said.
April is usually the windiest month in New Mexico, especially toward the end of the month, Anderson said. There are signs that most of the state could be impacted, but the greatest fire danger most likely will be in the far northwest and northeast areas.
“The key ingredient in this whole process is the really dry antecedent conditions that we have,” Anderson said. “The vegetation is dry. It’s continuing to dry out — it’s actually getting drier with time. We don’t need a whole lot of wind, so if the forecast turns up a little bit, we may issue the wind advisories on top of the anticipated fire weather watch and red flag warnings that we’ll be issuing.”
Anderson said that unless there’s a lot of precipitation, we can expect these dry, windy conditions to continue through May and into June.
“We do have some confidence that we could get into some higher humidity and perhaps some precipitation,” Anderson said. “Keep your fingers crossed on that.”
