Heat and Fire Weather Concerns in the West

Heat will build over the Intermountain West and the Southwest the next couple of days. Lightning from dry thunderstorms can create new fire starts and combined with gusty winds may cause a fire to rapidly grow in Oregon and northern California. Elevated fire weather conditions are also expected in the Great Basin. Flash flooding will be possible in Arizona and west Texas, especially in burn scars. Read More >

Spring 2023 ended up slightly below normal temperature-wise and with above normal snowfall and generally below normal precipitation overall. The averages don’t really capture the story very well, however, as there were several notable pattern changes throughout the spring. March was noticeably colder than normal with above normal precipitation, including snow. Then, a very pronounced warmup happened in April which melted most of the snowpack around the region and led to widespread areal flooding. Temperatures cooled down a bit for a couple weeks after that with more wintry systems passing through, bringing above average snowfall for April. Another stark pattern shift was observed in May with well below normal rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures. Plentiful moisture and flooding was pretty quickly replaced by dry weather and drought.