High pressure that had been over New
Mexico to start the month shifted to the east of New Mexico on the 2nd.
This allowed a stream of monsoonal moisture to move into New Mexico early
on the 3rd. The moisture lingered through the 5th, and was aided by a
back door cold front into the east on Saturday the 4th. With all this
available moisture, heavy rain was reported at several locations and
resulted in some flash flooding on the 4th and 5th. The infrared satellite
image below shows the moisture plume over the state on the morning of
the 3rd.
The surface dewpoints from the morning of the 3rd are shown
in the surface map below, revealing plenty of low level moisture to work
with.
The radar image below and to the left is from the morning
of the 3rd. A large area of showers was over the central portions
of the state, but the rain was not particularly heavy. By the evening
thunderstorms had developed over the western portion of the state,
as shown by the
radar image below
and to the right. The rain was generally a little heavier, especially
over the southern deserts.
The radar images below are from Saturday the 4th. The left image is from
Saturday morning, showing the rain had again shifted to central and
eastern New Mexico, and was generally light. Stronger storms formed
in the afternoon over the state, mainly over the far
eastern plains.
The radar images below are from Sunday the 5th, showing only isolated
areas of showers and thunderstorms in the morning, while the afternoon
exploded
with widespread storms and isolated reports of large hail, high
and damaging winds and heavy rain. Sunday afternoon was by far the
most active over the
4th of July holiday weekend.
The extensive showers and thunderstorms over the state during this three
day period produced some impressive rainfall totals. The table below
lists some of them. Click here for the estimated storm total precipitation
from the Cannon AFB 88D radar for just the 5th of July. Note the yellows,
representing 2.50 to 4.00 inches. These rain amounts were probably
a little high due to hail contamination, but the town of House had
a few reports of between 1.00 and 3.00 inches of rain!
July
3-5 Rainfall Amounts (inches)
Location
Amount
Location
Amount
around House
0.85-2.90
Antelope Wells
1.50
around Grenville
0.50-1.30
2SE Espanola
1.40
Las Vegas Arpt
1.13
Cannon AFB
1.09
Raton Arpt
0.75
Deming area
0.62-0.76
Roswell Arpt
0.54
Albuquerque Snprt
0.51
Santa Fe Arpt
0.51
Clayton Arpt
0.45
National Weather Service
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2341 Clark Carr LP SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
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