High Wind in South Central Highlands, New Mexico

The Little Burro mesonet on White Sands Missile Range measured peak wind gusts of 74 mph.

An upper level trough dove south over the Great Basin merging with an upper low off the coast of California on April 17th. Strong southwest winds moved over New Mexico ahead of these two upper level systems. Deep daytime mixing allowed the stronger winds to mix down to the surface resulting in high wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph across much of central and eastern New Mexico. These strong southwest winds combined with the very dry soils to kick up blowing dust across the aforementioned area. Fortunately, visibility in the blowing dust only dropped to around a mile. Winds tapered off during the evening hours at around sunset but remained pretty gusty across the southern high terrain.