Here is a gorgeous site of a desert city. The Duke City is truly a unique location with it's city life and hot air balloons. The weather here is just as unique as the city itself. The trickiest part of forecasting for Albuquerque is the wind speed which highly influences the temperature for the city. Here is an aerial map of Albuquerque.
It sits in a valley to the west of Sandia Mountains and Manzano Mountains both of which are over 10,000 feet at their peak. Albuquerque rests about 5,300 feet above sea level, but the precise location that was forecasted for is 5,355 feet above sea level at the Albuquerque International Sunport which is indicated on the map with the blue and white airport symbol next to Interstate 25. Earlier I mentioned that wind played a huge factor in the weather here esp. with the temperatures. Here is an image to explain why.
The arrows point to Interstate 40 which separates the Sandia and Manzano Mountains. With the interstate being there, any easterly wind will travel along the valley it lies in and accelerates the wind speed. The airport lies just directly west of this valley and can experience some very strong winds. One day during the forecast period the strongest sustained wind was 55 mph with a gust of 68 mph. Those kind of winds are found in a strong tropical storm! Not only are the easterly winds stronger than winds from other directions, they can also warm the city as the air descends the mountains and travel into the city. This can make for a warmer high and low. Clouds always play a factor when forecasting for any city, but this time the geography played a big influence on clouds. There was a day where clouds stayed over the city for several hours although there wasn't much instability to create them. It was all due to orographic lifting, i.e. winds pushing air up a mountain, cooling the air until saturated forming a cloud, and then pushing it off the other side of the mountain. This effect was due to all the mountains to the west of Albuquerque. When that occurred, the temperature couldn't warm up as much as it could have and also didn't cool off as much is could have. Since Albuquerque is an arid location, rain wasn't much of a factor as none of it accumulated during the forecast period. However, precipitation does fall over the city, but due to strong winds and a very warm and dry surface the precipitation, rain or snow, typically evaporates or melts before ever reaching the ground. This was highly noticeable on one of the forecast days where snow fell, but quickly evaporated due to the strong, dry easterly winds and the dry air near the surface. With that in mind, it can influence the temperature through evaporative cooling, i.e. cooling the air through evaporation, and cooling the air off.
Overall, a very difficult city to forecast for if you are not acquainted to mountain weather. The next location is going to be almost as challenging as Albuquerque. It rests next to the tallest mountain in the world from its base to its peak and located in the most southern state in the United States. Here is a big hint, hulas, luaus, and leis are very common and traditional for this spot.
No comments:
Post a Comment