New Mexico’s weather forecasters keep eyes on the horizon
ALBUQUERQUE — By just about any measurement, it was a quiet day in the warning operations room at the National Weather Service office.
You didn’t need a forecaster or any fancy gadget to know it was sunny, with temperatures in the mid-60s and no breeze.
But as meteorologist Matt DeMaria scanned one of the many radar screens he uses to monitor weather conditions, he spotted a “hot spot” of red. A fire.
DeMaria shifted into action, making a quick call to the emergency manager of Union County, who confirmed there was merely a prescribed burn in the area. But the vignette offered a look into the workday of the weather service, where even a whisper of wind or an unsightly splotch on a computer screen can send everyone in the office into action.
No one, particularly those responsible for predicting the weekly, daily and hourly conditions for an entire state, takes New Mexico’s sometimes-erratic weather for granted.
“You gotta drive in it; you gotta dress for it; you gotta travel across country and you have to look at that route, right? So you have to prepare,” said meteorologist Clay Anderson.
Anderson said the weather service’s responsibilities lie beyond just predicting whether a ballgame is going to get rained out. In New Mexico, moisture — or the lack of it — affects the state’s water supply and the potential for a rough fire season.
“The more moisture we can get over the spring months, the more abbreviated our fire season becomes,” he said last week. “If the forecast is for a windy and dry spring, that fire season can start now, which is when we start to notice some larger fire growth.”
The screen DeMaria was monitoring Thursday is one of a series of data and satellite screens National Weather Service staff members rely upon to keep track of weather and fire patterns — 24/7, 365. The screens also prepare them to issue warnings to government agencies, travelers, pilots, search and rescue teams, firefighters and the general public.
One screen monitors road traffic around the state — and weather conditions on those roads. Another screen shows weather patterns. And the really important one — the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System — consolidates meteorological and hydrological information with radar and satellite imagery.
Throw in an array of weather modeling systems, including the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasts, a Canadian-based model and the Global Forecast System — and you have a data-driven recipe for predicting the weather.
But even with all that, predictions sometimes don’t pan out.
“We go into ensemble forecasting,” Anderson said. “Rather than look at one deterministic model run, we look at various versions of models, look for a consensus — which ones verify better than others?” he said.
The process allows meteorologists to come up with what Anderson calls a “probabilistic forecast.”
Still, probabilistic doesn’t mean foolproof. There are times when predictions are wrong, and as a result some of the weather service’s regular followers want to know why.
Recalling a prediction of rain and/or snow for the Santa Fe area late last year, Anderson said “pretty much everybody got measurable precipitation” from the storm.
But not everybody. A regular follower on X, formerly Twitter, asked an obvious question: “What happened to my 100% chance of rain? I didn’t get any.”
Anderson smiled as he recalled thinking, “Well, everybody but you did.”
He also acknowledged missed forecasts are part of the job — uncommon, but possible.
“Those things happen,” he said. “We do our best.”
The mystery of the weather, not to mention the uncertainties it sometimes causes, is a siren song to some. Anderson and DeMaria got into meteorology for very different reasons, though both were fascinated with weather patterns from a very early age.
For the Texas-born Anderson, a teenage surfing nut, knowing in advance how the winds and waves were going to work near Galveston Island was key to enjoying the sport.
“I got into it as an amateur, a high school student trying to figure out when the conditions would be right to surf,” he said.
A talent for math and science — a must for any meteorologist — helped steer him toward Texas A&M University to earn a degree in the business. He’s been working as a meteorologist since 1996 and has 25 years with the National Weather Service.
Growing up in Georgia, DeMaria watched in awe as a little boy as Hurricane Ivan blew the lawn furniture in his backyard this way and that in 2004.
“So I started watching the Weather Channel,” he said. “I guess my parents said, ‘Oh, you want to be a meteorologist?’ So from then it was the pattern I was on.” He earned his degree from the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma.
DeMaria, 25, started working for the weather service as an intern in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 2021. He’s been with the Albuquerque station for about 18 months.
Both DeMaria and Anderson said they love the excitement of a severe storm or blizzard — relatively rare in New Mexico, but still possible enough to keep people glued to the weather report. Such events drive their energy to figure out what’s going on and how it’s going to affect their clientele, which is to say an entire state.
“What’s required of us ramps up significantly,” Anderson said of such moments, noting they have the potential to alter lives.
“These weather hazards — tornadoes, severe weather — impact peoples’ lives significantly. Maybe even their livelihood, too,” he said.
“You get to look at something that is constantly evolving in front of your eyes,” DeMaria noted while monitoring one of the ubiquitous screens. “You get to look at maps and watch something unfold before your eyes.
“There are quiet days, but to go a week or two of being quiet is extremely rare,” he said. “So there’s almost something new about it to keep you interested and make you wonder what’s going to happen next.”