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March brought mixed weather bag in Los Alamos, White Rock

There was a little bit of everything, weatherwise, in Los Alamos and White Rock in March including warmer and cooler than normal temperatures, some snow, rain and dry days.

While temperatures were about normal in the two towns, there were periods in mid-March when cloudiness kept temperatures down and two days near the end of the month when temperatures were well below normal, according to Scot Johnson, a Laboratory meteorologist in Meteorology and Air Quality (RRES-MAQ).

Johnson said Los Alamos' mean maximum temperature in March was 51 degrees Fahrenheit, or normal. The mean and mean minimum temperatures also were at or just below normal for the month. No temperature records were established in Los Alamos in March.

White Rock was at 56 degrees F for its mean maximum in March or 1 F above normal. Its mean and mean minimum temperatures were at or just below normal, Johnson said. White Rock had two new temperature records last month. A 36 F low temperature on March 16 established a high minimum temperature mark; and the mercury dipped to 14 F on March 29, breaking the old record of 15 F set in 1987, Johnson said.

In Los Alamos last month, .63 inches of precipitation was recorded at the Technical Area 6 measuring station, or about half of the normal (1.28 inches) for the month. Yet it was more than a half-inch greater than the .02 inches of precipitation recorded in March 2002 in Los Alamos. Johnson said that only 3.2 inches of the recorded precipitation in March was in the form of snow. The figure is less than one-third of the normal snowfall (10.9 inches) for March.

Total snowfall for the season in Los Alamos is 27.5 inches, or about 52 percent of normal (52.5 inches) through March.

To the east in White Rock, .96 inches of precipitation was recorded at the Technical Area 54 measuring station last month, or about 9 percent above the norm (.88) for the month. The total also was far greater than the scant .01 inches of precipitation recorded in White Rock in March 2002.

Wind gusts topping 40 miles per hour were recorded in Los Alamos on March 27. Johnson said windiness in March, as measured by average wind speed and average maximum daily gust speed, was slightly calmer than normal in Los Alamos and about 15 percent calmer than normal in White Rock.

Johnson added that he expects normal precipitation and normal temperatures in Los Alamos and White Rock in the April through June period.

More information about weather in the region can be found at http://weather.lanl.gov online.

-- Steve Sandoval

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