NWS ABQ April 9-12 Snow and Wind Event

April 2008 Winds - Were They Stronger than Normal?
Spring is New Mexico is generally the windiest season of the year, and this April was no exception. In Albuquerque, our daily peak gust in April of 2008 exceeded 40 mph on five days. We received several inquiries regarding winds this past April. Were they unusually high or was April 2008 fairly typical? To answer this question we examined April wind data from this year, and the previous 27 years, for Albuquerque and Tucumcari.
	This graph illustrates the mean monthly wind speed for Albuquerque (blue) and Tucumcari (red) for the years 1985 through 2005. For both sites, March, April and May are generally the windiest. Tucumcari winds average about 3 to 4 mph faster than Albuquerque winds.

In order to compare 2008 to previous years, we first examined hourly data for April for the years 1980 though 2008. Averages for each year were calculated. These results are shown in the two graphs below:
	In Albuquerque, the average wind speed in April was just below 10 mph. This is lower than the peak values for nearly 13.5 mph in 1983 and 2000.
	In Tucumcari, while the mean wind speed was greater than that in Albuquerque, with a value around 12 mph, it is also less than previous peak years. For both stations, mean wind speeds were near average.

Looking at the mean speed tells us little about the number of high wind events. Therefore, we also examined the number of high gusts for Albuquerque. For each year, we calculated the hours for which the wind gust exceeded 30 mph. For 2008, the value is somewhat greater than the long term mean, but not excessively so. Therefore, winds in April of 2008 were not much greater than our long term normals, but clearly there were several days with gusty winds.