The Erik Files: Weekend Warmup!

**ON THIS DATE IN 2000: Thunderstorms brought dry lightning across Meade and Perkins counties causing 23 fires. The largest fire was nearly two miles long and five miles wide in rural Perkins County along the Grand River.

ANOTHER ONE BROKEN! Well folks, go Ahead and play “Another One Bites The Dust” as we broke another record yesterday. On Wednesday, the overnight low was 24, which broke the old record of 32 set back in 2001.

WEST COAST WILDFIRES

So, we discussed this last night about the wildfires in the west. Here’s a recent look at the latest Visible Satellite, and I am going to draw your attention to a couple of things:

First of all, notice how the smoke is blowing west? Well, you can thank that nice upper level low with that counter clockwise flow across the 4 Corners region for that. As Bob mentioned yesterday, Had that would’ve been a High Pressure there, the smoke would have been blowing across the Intermountain West and right into the Black Hills Region. Fortunately that isn’t the case.

I say this as I have some friends in the business who live in Oregon, and California, please keep everyone from those evacuated, to those trying to fight it, to our fellow colleagues in the media in your thoughts and prayers over the next several days as it’s a scary situation for thousands .

If you want to see some cameras across the west coast, please visit http://www.alertwildfire.org/.

CLOSER TO HOME

Let’s start off by taking a look at the latest drought index:

This is updated every Thursday, and you’ll notice while we did get a nice soaking the other day, we still have very dry conditions across the Black Hills. If you look at Sheridan County, they are in the red. No matter how you slice it , we still need a substantial amount of precipitation here.

HOUR BY HOUR:

Sunny skies again will be the rule for the day. By the evening hours, you will notice how the clouds start to pick up. I am going to put in an overnight rain chance, which will continue into Friday Morning for some places. However, there will be some places who won’t see a single drop. You could see a nice shower, and your neighbor a few doors down the road won’t see a drop.

OVERVIEW TODAY:
Abundant sunshine will be the rule for your Thursday. It will feel very fall-like. Take a look at the highs across the region!

THIS WEEKEND:

We will go back into the 70’s for Saturday, and 80’s for Sunday with lots of sunshine! Definitely a nice weekend to get outside and enjoy it.

HERE’S YOUR 7 DAY FORECAST:

Enjoy your Thursday!

-Erik Dean
Meteorologist
Facebook: /ErikDeanWX
Twitter: @ErikDeanWX