Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Fire Danger Concerns

The cool front that arrived first thing this morning certainly did not do much to cool us off, as you can see by the max/min temperature map for today. But, it did bring gusty northerly winds and very dry air which has created a high fire danger situation and that is something we will have to be aware of in the days ahead.

Notice, for example, how strong the winds have been today and how low the humidity was during the afternoon hours, as shown on the next two maps. Fortunately, the winds will quickly diminish with the setting sun this evening, and we will have very light winds for Tuesday, which will eventually be returning to a more SE direction by afternoon.

However, the relative humidity will drop off to near the 20% level during the heat of the day, so it will be very dry once again. This dry air will limit the amount of morning dew and will also result in some cooler nights - with morning lows in the 40s to low 50s for tonight and again Tuesday night. Full sunshine will also produce a rapid warm-up with daytime highs back into the lower 80s for Tue & Wed.

As mentioned, our winds will be very light on Tuesday, eventually shifting back to a more SE direction. Another weak boundary looks to arrive during the day Wednesday, shifting our winds back to a more NE direction. This will not amount to much more than a wind shift keeping dry air over us and certainly not cooling us off as we will be back into the 80s that afternoon.

Stronger southerly winds will return during the day Thursday, pushing afternoon temperatures into the mid-upper 80s under mostly sunny skies and with another high fire danger situation. A stronger cool front will arrive by early Friday with brisk NE winds and much cooler conditions, as you can see on our forecast page. But, this system will also be moisture starved, so, although we will see, at least, more cloud cover for Friday into Saturday, our rain chances are pretty much in the slim to none category.

A few showers will certainly be possible, but those that do occur look to be on the light side. Notice the 7-day QPF map for example which has little or no rain for us.

That will be followed by another rapid warm-up, with temperatures near 80 again by early next week along with gusty southerly winds and quite likely another high fire danger situation.

Looking further down the road, there may be some help on the horizon.

Although the 8-14-day outlook suggests above normal temperatures will likely prevail for much of that period, at least there is also the suggestion of a wetter signal starting to show up over that time frame. Not going to count on that just yet though, as lots can change between now and then, but at least there is some hope.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot