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SOUTHWEST WEATHER BULLETIN
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SOUTHWEST WEATHER BULLETIN
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| National Weather Service El Paso/Santa Teresa Volume 4 Issue 4 |
Winter 2000-2001 Edition |
| SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS FLOODING RAINS AND HEAVY SNOWS HAMMER SOUTHWEST |
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Contents:Pages 2-3: Page 4-6: Page 7-8: Page 9:
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Southern New Mexico and western Texas
experienced one of the most active autumn weather patterns in many years
with portions of the region seeing severe thunderstorms, torrential
rains, and heavy snows. In addition, both record heat and record cold
temperatures plagued much of the borderland.
The season actually began hot and dry as a strong ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere dominated the circulation for most of September and early October. During the first week of September temperatures in the lower elevations ranged from the middle 90's to over 100 degrees with El Paso hitting 100 on September 7 to tie a record. For the remainder of the month, very warm or hot temperatures persisted for most of the period with readings generally from the middle 80s to lower 90s under mostly sunny skies.
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The heat continued into early October with
high temperatures into the lower and middle 90s across the lower
elevations. El Paso hit 94 degrees on both October 1 and 3 to tie a
record. Thermometers soared to 95 on October 4 to set a new record high
for the date.
The prolonged period of hot weather came to an abrupt end on October 7 as a mass of cold Arctic air from Canada plunged into the southern Rockies. Thus record heat suddenly gave way to record cold temperatures across the borderland. El Paso’s maximum temperatures from October 7 to October 10 were 56, 43 and 47 degrees respectively which were record low highs. Low temperatures during the nights of Oct. 9 and 10 plummeted to 37 and 38 which tied low temperature records for these dates.
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