Weather & Climate

Smoke from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire drifts over Las Vegas, N.M., on Saturday, May 7, 2022.

More New Mexico residents warned they may need to flee fire

May 9, 2022, 11:12am Nation & World

Firefighters in New Mexico's Rocky Mountain foothills prepared Monday to excavate new firebreaks and clear brush to create more defensive lines aimed at preventing a massive wildfire from destroying more homes and tinder-dry pine forests. Read story

It’s not even summer, and California’s two largest reservoirs are at ‘critically low’ levels

May 9, 2022, 7:56am Nation & World

At a point in the year when California’s water storage should be at its highest, the state’s two largest reservoirs have already dropped to critically low levels — a sobering outlook for the hotter and drier months ahead. Read story

Two tornadoes touch down in Spokane area, bringing down trees and damaging homes, vehicles

May 9, 2022, 7:29am Northwest

Two tornadoes touched down Friday night in the Spokane area, leaving destruction in its path. Read story

Mission Sensor Operator Wade Hutt checks out the large camera attached to the Pilatus multi-mission aircraft in a hangar at Centennial Airport at Centennial Airport on May 2, 2022, in Englewood, Colorado. This aircraft is used to detect fires, help with mapping of perimeters and give real time situational awareness of fires. The plane is also used for search and rescue operations, wildlife surveys, even avalanches. (Helen H.

Is artificial intelligence the next tool to fight wildfires in the West?

May 8, 2022, 6:02am Nation & World

With wildfires becoming bigger and more destructive as the West dries out and heats up, agencies and officials tasked with preventing and battling the blazes could soon have a new tool to add to their arsenal of prescribed burns, pick axes, chain saws and aircraft. Read story

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

Weather Eye: Copy and paste last week’s forecast into this week

May 8, 2022, 6:00am Clark County News

I can tell you the weather forecast for this month, which is a continuation of April and not what we usually expect for May. It will be cooler and wetter than average, and that trend will remain with us for a while. Read story

Unprecedented wind gusts expected to fan flames in New Mexico

Jeff Franco, left, and other wildland firefighters from Apple Valley, Calif., mop up hot spots along NM 283 near Las Vegas, N.M., Thursday, May 5, 2022. Firefighters are trying to hold the Calf Canyon/Hermit Peak Fire at the road and not let it cross.

Weather conditions described as potentially historic were on tap for New Mexico on Saturday and for the next several days as over 1,400 firefighters and a fleet of airplanes and helicopters worked feverishly to bolster lines around the largest fire burning in the U.S. Read story

Alabama store flattened as storms race across Southeast

Tony Dowdy, of Victory Family Church, helps clean up tornado damage in Seminole, Okla. on Thursday, May, 5, 2022. A springtime storm system spawned several tornadoes that whipped through areas of Texas and Oklahoma, causing damage to a school, a marijuana farm and other structures.

A possible tornado flattened a downtown store before dawn and ripped the front off a metal building across Mobile Bay on Friday, and forecasters said more storms could hit an area stretching from south Alabama to coastal Virginia. Read story