Changes to the Fire Weather Forecast Zones in Southwest Minnesota and Northwest Iowa

Changes to the boundaries of Fire Weather Forecast Zones in southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa served by National Weather Service Forecast Office Sioux Falls SD, effective June 16, 2016

Effective Sunday, June 16, 2016, at 0600 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the National Weather Service Forecast Office (WFO) in Sioux Falls, SD (FSD), will change the fixed fire weather zones in southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa to county zones. These changes will improve services for WFO FSD fire weather partners by allowing WFO FSD to align the counties with expected weather. This is especially crucial in being able to better time forecasted wind shifts. The fixed fire weather zones currently in place for WFO FSDs area in South Dakota and Nebraska will remain unchanged. Specifically, the fire weather zone in southwest Minnesota, MNZ900, will change to a county based format. Fire Weather zone MNZ900 will no longer exist.

The county zones in southwest Minnesota are as follows:

County Number	County Name
MNZ071	Lincoln
MNZ072	Lyon
MNZ080	Murray
MNZ081	Cottonwood
MNZ089	Nobles
MNZ090	Jackson
MNZ097	Pipestone
MNZ098	Rock

Likewise, the two fire weather zones in northwest Iowa, IAZ300 and IAZ301 will also change to a county based format. Fire weather zones IAZ300 and IAZ301 will no longer exist. The county zones in northwest Iowa are as follows:

County Number	County Name
IAZ001	Lyon
IAZ002	Osceola
IAZ003	Dickinson
IAZ012	Sioux
IAZ013	O Brien
IAZ014	Clay
IAZ020	Plymouth
IAZ021	Cherokee
IAZ022	Buena Vista
IAZ031	Woodbury
IAZ032	Ida

Maps

Graphical descriptions of the old and new fire weather forecast zones are available below:

Current FSD CWA Fire Weather Zones

Click Here to Download

New proposed fire weather zones

Click Here to Download

Text Products

NWS watch, warning and forecast products affected by these changes are:

PRODUCT	WMO HEADING	AWIPS ID
Fire Weather Watch	WWUS83	RFWFSD
Red Flag Warning	WWUS83	RFWFSD
Fire Weather Planning Forecast	FNUS53	FWFFSD

NWS partners and users will need to make necessary changes to their communications systems to accomodate these fire weather forecast zone changes.

A shapefile of the new fire weather forecast zones for WFO FSD is online at:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/geodata/catalog/wsom/html/firezone.htm

Contact Information

For more information, contact:

Mike Fuhs
Fire Weather Program Leader
NWS Sioux Falls, SD 57104
Phone: 605-330-4246
Email: michael.fuhs@noaa.gov

National Service Change Notices are online at:

https://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm