California’s first storms of the monsoon season are expected to arrive this weekend, raising concerns about heightened wildfire risk.
The storms could reach Central California as early as Sunday, bringing gusty winds across the Sierra Nevada and a 10% chance of lightning but producing very little rain, said Carlos Molina, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.
Some of California’s largest recorded blazes have started with dry lightning strikes, including the August Complex fire, which in 2020 became the state’s first to burn more than a million acres.
The mountain thunderstorms are expected to continue Monday and Tuesday but should be accompanied by wetting rains that dampen fire risk, with about a tenth of an inch of precipitation, Molina said. The moisture will be confined to the Sierra and the Owens Valley side of the range and is not expected to reach the San Joaquin Valley, which is likely to see triple-digit heat, he said.
Monsoon storms can be unpredictable and trigger flash flooding in desert areas, so people should remain aware of their surroundings, he said.
There’s a 10% to 20% chance of lightning in Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, primarily in mountain areas, starting Sunday and lasting through Thursday, said Spencer Fielding, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
Those areas could also see rain, but forecasters won’t know for sure until it gets closer, he said. Temperatures are expected to rise, with some areas reaching 10 to 15 degrees above normal, and conditions will also likely be more humid due to the monsoonal moisture, he said.
The monsoon is a switch in wind direction that occasionally pushes subtropical moisture into California in the summer, said Dylan Flynn, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.
The moisture is expected to arrive in the Bay Area on Sunday and will likely peak Sunday night into Monday morning, bringing erratic, gusty winds and a roughly 20% chance of lightning, Flynn said. By the time it reaches that far north, the pattern is not expected to drop much, if any, rain, and even if it does, much of it will evaporate before hitting the ground due to the dryness of the summer air, Flynn said.
“That creates its own hazard of, potentially, lightning without the rain that could put out any fire starts,” he said, adding that a warming trend has dried plants and soils.
To the east, Death Valley and the Morongo Basin could see isolated storms Sunday, followed by more widespread activity Monday, with scattered thunderstorms, dry lightning and gusty winds, said Stan Czyzyk, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. Any rainfall is expected to be light, he said.
There is some potential that heavier rains could reach the area after Monday, but the outlook remains uncertain, he said.
The moisture should provide some relief from hot temperatures that have beset the area, although it will also raise humidity levels, meaning that conditions likely won’t cool as much at night, he said.
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