Weather Lookup

Key Messages

* hot and dry conditions are expected through the rest of the week, with triple digit heat to lower valleys starting thursday.

* nearby fires continue producing smoke and reducing air quality for portions of northeast california and western nevada. * typical afternoon winds are expected each day, some isolated locations may reach elevated fire conditions in the afternoons.

Discussion

Not a lot of change in this forecast package. We continue to observe mostly clear skies, along with typical westerly afternoon winds with gusts to 20-25 MPH, and seasonably hot weather. The main concern at the moment is smoke from nearby fires in northeast ca that continue to affect the vicinity of these fires. Models hint at this smoke continuing to affect portions of western nv, especially the sierra front including reno, sparks, carson city, fernley, and fallon through tonight. Oregon fires will also bring smoke to the surprise valley and northern lassen-washoe-pershing counties per the HRRR through this evening. Winds take more of a southwesterly component on thursday that should lessen the amount of smoke in our region. Furthermore, the winds through the week will lead to isolated elevated fire conditions as gusts reach 25-30 MPH winds along with very dry and hot conditions for brief periods of time.

The aforementioned shift in wind direction is associated to an upper level ridge retrograding towards the desert southwest from the southern plains. This will lead to more clear skies and a warming trend. Afternoon highs are forecast to reach at least 100f starting on thursday over the lowest western nv valleys. This area will expand each day into the weekend with saturday being the hottest in the near term with a 50-90% chance of seeing 100f between thursday and saturday. If the current trend persists, there is a decent probability for a heat advisory for mineral, churchill, pershing, and lyon counties either on friday or saturday, leaning more for one on saturday, though; as temperatures rise to 102-105f with lows in the upper 60S to mid 70S.

Early next week, the ridge breaks down briefly with the passage of an upper trough through the pacnw. No significant hazards are expected with this system as it is a dry system, plus the winds remain similar to the last several days. However, once the upper ridge is reestablished around mid-week, ensembles are hinting at the center of the high to be right over US, which means that it is going to be hotter with an 80-95% chance of observing max temperatures above 100f. There is a lot of agreement. So all i can say is that it is going to be hot next week. The next chances for rain do not come into the forecast until close to mid-august.

-hc

Aviation

VFR conditions prevail through the next 24 hrs. However, slantwise visibility reductions are possible due to smoke in the region. Winds will be from the west and southwest with gusts up to 20-25 KTS becoming light and vrb overnight and in the morning.

-hc