ALBUQUERQUE, NM — The heat wave is over — but what it left behind in Albuquerque’s record books will stand for a very long time. In a city that has been keeping weather records since 1891, the last week and a half of March 2026 just did something that 135 years of meteorological history had never managed to do. Eight of the ten hottest March days ever recorded in Albuquerque happened between March 18 and March 26, 2026. Not over decades. Not over years. In eleven days.
The Record That Stopped Everyone Cold
Before this heat wave arrived, there was one temperature barrier that Albuquerque had never crossed in the month of March — not once in 135 years of record-keeping dating back to December 1891. A 90-degree day in March had never been recorded in Albuquerque prior to May 3. The city simply did not reach 90°F in March. That was the rule. March 2026 broke that rule — twice.
On March 21, 2026, Albuquerque recorded a 1-day mean maximum temperature of 91.0°F — the single hottest March day in the city’s entire recorded history. Four days later, on March 25, the city hit 90.0°F again — the second time in history that Albuquerque crossed the 90-degree threshold in March, and it happened in the same week.
The ThreadEx Applied Climate Information System, which maintains continuous temperature records for the Albuquerque area dating back to December 1, 1891, tells the full story of just how extraordinary this stretch of heat was…