National Fire News

Strong southwesterly winds will continue across much of New Mexico into portions of the central/southern High Plains, with widespread critical conditions into Saturday and possibly Sunday. A storm across the central Plains will slowly move into the western Great Lakes this weekend with severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall for much of the eastern Plains into the Lower/Mid-Mississippi Valley. Widespread wetting rain is forecast for much of the northern Plains into the western Great Lakes as well. The storm will weaken as it moves east with light to moderate rain for the Appalachians, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast early to mid-next week. However, much of the Southeast will remain dry, with several days of minimum relative humidity below 35% possible for South Georgia and Florida. Across the West, a deep upper trough will bring widespread showers and high elevation snow to the much of the West through the weekend. As the storm emerges onto the Plains, more showers and thunderstorms are likely across much of the central and southern Plains mid to late next week, including portions of the High Plains. Fast- moving storms are then likely to track across the northern third of the West next week with periods of light precipitation, but much of the Great Basin, California, and Southwest will return to drier conditions with periods of breezy conditions. A cooling trend is forecast across much of Alaska this weekend into next week with temperatures returning to normal, but any precipitation that occurs will be light. For Hawai’i, moderate trade winds and generally dry conditions are expected into mid-next week. National Predictive Services Outlook 6 Minutes for Safety: The 6 Minutes for Safety topic of the day is Working With Helicopter Drops.