Get ready for a warm, sunny weekend

After possible clouds, showers Tuesday, temperatures are expected to rise to 74 degrees by Friday — the warmest of the year

The skies will turn dark for at least part of Tuesday — though not as dark as they were during the roughly four minutes of Monday’s solar eclipse.

The day’s forecast for the Santa Fe area calls for “pretty good rainfall” mixed with gray overcast skies, Scott Overpeck, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Albuquerque, said in a Monday briefing.

Snow is predicted only in the higher elevations Tuesday, adding a little to this year’s ample snowpack in the mountains, Overpeck said.

But the dreary weather will quickly pass, replaced by sunshine and rising temperatures for the rest of the week. Highs could reach 74 degrees by Friday, the warmest of the year — a boost to snowmelt in the mountains.

Brisk winds, common this time of year in New Mexico, are expected to strengthen at the end of the week, increasing fire risk in the region amid the stretch of warm, dry weather that will extend into late April.

The first week of April brought a fair amount of snow to various ranges, including the Sangre de Cristo and Tusas Mountains, Overpeck said. The snowpack is anywhere from 120% to 4,000% of normal for this time of year, hydrologist Andrew Mangham said, noting some of the numbers are “eye-popping.”

Snowpack that’s above 300% of normal in spring is lingering well past the time it usually melts, Mangham said. A good portion of the snow has a high water content, he added, which will create robust runoff that will cascade off the mountains any time.

Temperatures are expected to warm to above normal in the next several weeks, which will quicken the snowmelt, he said, potentially swelling the rivers in their path to the point of overflow.

Mangham said experts are concerned about snowmelt causing flooding in the Jemez Mountains and Upper Pecos headwaters, as well as the Mora and Sapeo River areas.

“So these are going to be areas we’re going to be watching very closely,” Mangham said.