textproduct: Spokane

KEY MESSAGES

- Dry and breezy with elevated to critical fire weather concerns through Thursday.

- Cooler but still warm and mountain thunderstorms mid to late this week.

SYNOPSIS

Breezy winds and dry conditions through Thursday will lead to increased fire weather concerns. Temperatures continue to gradually cool down for the rest of the week. Mountain thunderstorm chances begin to increase Wednesday.

FIRE WEATHER

A red flag warning remains in effect for the Wenatchee Area, Waterville Plateau, and Moses Lake Area for breezy winds and low relative humidity Wednesday afternoon/evening. The cross-Cascade pressure gradient is progged to be between 9-10 mb, whereas Tuesday the gradient topped out at 8 mb. It will be a little stronger due in part to a deeper marine layer on the west side of the Cascades. Unfortunately, the marine layer won't get deep enough to bring a surge of cooler more moist air with relative humidity seeing a sharp recovery. Expect critical fire weather conditions for the aforementioned areas again today between 3pm and 9pm.

An additional elevated fire weather risk will be for lightning starting new fires across the northern districts. Chances have increased for thunderstorms to develop over the Pasayten Wilderness to the Okanogan Highlands around 1500 PDT and then continue through the evening into the overnight hours. Thunderstorm development looks to be further east with time overnight and forming over the mountains of northeast Washington by midnight. Lightning coverage looks to be isolated to scattered. Better potential for scattered lightning strikes will be in the afternoon to evening hours and then decrease in intensity overnight. /SVH

AVIATION

12Z TAFS: VFR conditions will prevail. Northwest winds late Wednesday afternoon at KEAT will bring gusts up to between 25-30 kts. Winds will be breezy with out of the west-southwest between 10-15 kts at KMWH-KGEG-KSFF-KCOE-KPUW.

FORECAST CONFIDENCE AND/OR ALTERNATE SCENARIOS: High confidence for VFR conditions. Conditions will be right for critical fire weather conditions in the afternoon near KEAT to KWMH that may result in fires that impact these terminals.

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Confidence descriptors: Low - Less than a 30 percent chance Moderate - 30 to 70 percent chance High - Greater than a 70 percent chance

For additional probabilistic information for NWS Spokane airports,

please refer to the Aviation Dashboard on our webpage: https:/www.weather.gov/otx/avndashboard

Preliminary Point Temps/PoPs

Spokane 86 54 81 52 77 51 / 0 10 0 0 10 10 Coeur d'Alene 86 54 81 53 78 51 / 0 10 0 10 10 10 Pullman 82 49 77 49 74 46 / 10 0 0 10 10 10 Lewiston 91 58 87 58 83 56 / 10 0 0 10 10 10 Colville 87 49 81 46 77 44 / 10 30 20 20 20 20 Sandpoint 85 54 80 52 77 49 / 10 20 10 10 20 20 Kellogg 83 56 78 56 75 54 / 0 10 10 20 20 20 Moses Lake 93 56 87 50 82 50 / 0 0 0 0 0 0 Wenatchee 93 61 84 55 81 54 / 0 0 0 0 0 0 Omak 93 58 85 51 80 51 / 10 30 20 20 10 20

OTX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

WA...Red Flag Warning from 2 PM this afternoon to 8 PM PDT this evening for Foothills of Central Washington Cascades (Zone 705)-Waterville Plateau (Zone 706)-Western Columbia Basin (Zone 707). ID...None.