Critical fire conditions hold into this weekend

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Happy Wednesday, Utah! Today will run a few degrees warmer than yesterday with daytime highs climbing into the upper 90s for most valleys with triple digits possible for some, low to mid 100s for the warm spots, and mid 80s to low 90s in higher terrain. We have clear skies to start the day, but a few clouds will begin to stream in during the late afternoon and evening hours.

We could also see periods of haze through today as wildfires from southern California push smoke into western Utah while eastern Utah gets thicker plumes of smoke from the Monroe Canyon Fire and the Dragon Bravo Fire in Arizona. Tomorrow will be a case of rinse and repeat for both conditions and temperatures.

With dry breezy conditions and the lack of rain over the last month, fire conditions are critical for most of the state and will be that way through at least Saturday. Red Flag Warnings are in effect for the vast majority of the state, with the exception of the Wasatch Front and northern West Desert. Conditions will generally be similar across the board with southwest winds at 10-25 mph gusting up to 35 mph and humidity in the 6-15% range, but the timing varies.

The West Desert and Mojave Desert, including St. George and Cedar City, will see their warning expire on Thursday at 9 pm. The Wasatch Mountains and Bear River Range have a new Red Flag Warning which will be in effect on Thursday from noon to 9 pm. The Four Corners region, East Uinta Basin, and Book Cliffs’ warning expires the next day on Friday at 8 pm.

Just an hour later at 9 pm Friday the last of the warnings expire which make up the largest area and includes places like the San Rafael Swell, Grand Staircase, Color Country Mountains, West Uinta Basin, and Central Mountains where the Monroe Canyon Fire is still burning roughly 65,000 acres. We could see the alerts extend into Saturday for some places.

Temperatures take a tumble in northern Utah on Friday into the upper 80s for most valleys and will stay that way through the weekend before warming back up on Monday. No precipitation is in sight just yet, so the elevated fire threat will likely persist into next week.

We’ll keep you posted on any new developments in our 4Warn Weather forecast both on-air and online, we are Good4Utah!