Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for El Paso, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
A Pacific cold front will arrive Friday evening, bringing scattered rain showers overnight into Saturday. A few bands of heavier rain will be possible, especially across West Texas.
Breezy and cooler on Saturday, with lowland highs in the lower 60s. Temperatures look to remain slightly below normal into next week with midweek precipitation chances for Southwest New Mexico.
Pacific low currently moving ashore in Southern California will be the primary weather factor for Friday. Ahead of it, we'll see high clouds moving in early Friday morning. SSW flow aloft will promote moisture increases overnight, with PWs jumping to 0.8" across South-Central New Mexico and West Texas by Friday afternoon. Slight negative tilting within the trough axis aloft and very favorable diffluent flow ahead of the system will lead to the development of scattered showers and embedded thunderstorms Friday afternoon. Banded shower activity will move across much of the region between 5PM-11PM Friday night, with a few bands leading to heavier rain rates and localized flooding. chance of rain favor areas east of the Rio Grande, including El Paso, Hudspeth, and southern Otero Counties. Current forecast shows widespread rain amounts in the 0.20-0.50" range, with a few spots up to 1.00" east of El Paso. If any flooding does occur, it'll likely occur across West Texas.
As quick as this system arrives, it'll progress east away from us on Saturday. Wouldn't be surprised to see some lingering rain showers Saturday morning across South-Central New Mexico as the system lifts out. Some of the higher elevations of the Sacramento Mountains may even see an overnight rain/snow mix. Conditions on Saturday will be cooler, with lowland highs only reaching the lower 60s. We'll also see breezy west winds behind the cold front, generally 15 to 25 mph through the afternoon hours.
Cool but dry weather expected Sunday-Monday with another shortwave ridge in place. Temperatures will run 4 to 8 degrees below normal for mid-November, with lowland highs in the lower 60s and some chilly mornings in upper 30s/lower 40s.
Another shortwave trough moves across the Southern Rockies on Tuesday. Recent model runs (both the American global model and the European model) have shifted this low further north, swinging it across the Four Corners. Any precipitation chances look to miss us to the north. the blend-of-models forecast guidance still has mentionable rain chances for Southern New Mexico, but I expect that to disappear in the coming days.
Long term forecast, looking at a large-scale low pressure system over the Western US late next week. Lots of uncertainty with the evolution of this system, but looks like an active period. Both global models place the El Paso forecast area in a dry-slot, limiting expected rainfall somewhat. Will keep an eye on this pattern over the next several days.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole El Paso discussion at /o/EPZ/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.
Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub