The Las Conchas wildfire in the Jemez Mountains has grown to over 120,000 acres and is just 11% contained but the residents of Los Alamos are being allowed to return home. There are nearly 2,000 firefighters working this fire. 63 residences have been destroyed.
The Donaldson fire in south central New Mexico is about 50% contained. It has burned over 96,000 acres since it began Tuesday.
The Pacheco fire nine miles north of Santa Fe is 55% contained. It has remained at about 10,000 acres for some time now.
The weather has changed as the monsoon season approaches. Humidity here had been in single digits many days by mid-morning. Today at 9:15 the humidity is 29%. No measurable rain fell in Albuquerque officially yesterday, but there was a trace.
Meanwhile ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies are open this weekend, there is that much snow remaining from the record snow pack.
According to the AP: “The weather allowed some of the more adventurous skiers at Arapahoe to try ‘pond skimming,’ a blend of snow skiing and waterskiing in which an individual picks up as much speed as possible going downhill and then attempts to coast over the top of a mid-mountain lake.”
I’d as soon be fighting a fire.
You know you’re in New Mexico when 29% humidity feels muggy.
I grew up just outside of DC where summer days are 95 degrees and 90% humidity. Now that’s muggy! I could never go back there to live.