This year’s fire season was off to an early start, “around a week and a half, almost two weeks earlier than average,” said Andrew Church, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) in Albuquerque.
“Because of climate change and the megadrought across the Western US and especially the Great Basin, there’s no moisture in the soil anymore,” Church told CNN Wednesday.
Because the ground is so dry, the slight increase in relative humidity the area usually sees after a cold front passes no longer occurs, Church said.
“We don’t have that flux from the soil, from the fuels, the grasses and the vegetation, that … (give moisture back to the) atmosphere,” Church said.
That slight increase in relative humidity would “help keep small fires… in check… (and) stem the rapid spread of… wildfires,” Church explained.
Fire weather is becoming critical again
The weather will begin to deteriorate throughout the day for parts of the Southwest, marking the start of a multiday fire risk that peaks on Friday with strong winds.
A critical fire threat (level 2 of 3) is in place for parts of western New Mexico and northeastern Arizona on Wednesday.
Daily heating, resulting from clearing skies, will lead to single-digit relative humidity. Winds over northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico will range between 20-25 mph with higher gusts. These warm, dry and windy conditions are the recipe for increased fire spread and ignition.
The surrounding areas will have elevated fire risk with dry and breezy conditions.
An additional weather threat will be of concern across eastern New Mexico and eastern Colorado — thunderstorms.
These potential afternoon thunderstorms could bring “large hail, damaging winds, lightning strikes, brief heavy rain, and blowing dust,” according to the NWS in Albuquerque.
The keyword here is brief, as rain is not likely to reach the ground in most areas — these are called dry thunderstorms.
Wednesday’s dry thunderstorms are the only chance Albuquerque has for receiving measurable precipitation this month, and it is a low chance. April could end with just a trace of precipitation, the first month with no measurable precipitation in over three years for the city.
Dry thunderstorms are not helpful in fire suppression efforts, and are actually unfavorable.
“As these thunderstorms move over very dry fuels, isolated lightning-induced ignitions will be possible,” the Storm Prediction Center said.
Strong wind likes from these storms also enhance the spread of existing and newly sparked fires.
The critical fire risk area will expand Thursday to include much of central and southern New Mexico, with more dry and windy conditions.
Friday looks to be the worst day for fire weather when winds could like 65 mph in the region.
“The strongest winds are anticipated on Friday where some extremely critical conditions are possible across southern Colorado and northeast New Mexico,” the storm center said.
Extremely critical fire conditions are the highest-level threat issued by the weather service.
Images from space reveal the extent of New Mexico’s wildfires
New images released by NOAA show the extent of New Mexico’s current largest wildfires, the Hermit Peak/Calf Canyon and Cooks Peak fires. NASA provided three satellite images of the area near Santa Fe on April 23.
The Cooks Peak Fire (Northeast of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon) burned through 54,021 acres as of Tuesday morning.
These fires are in the elevated (level 1 of 3) fire risk for Wednesday, with worsening conditions on Thursday and Friday.
“It does look like chances are it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Church said. “We might have to wait quite a while until the monsoon, kicks in, hopefully sometime in late June.”
CNN’s Chad Myers, Judson Jones and Brandon Miller contributed to this report.
.