Wind and critical fire danger return to the parched Colorado high country this weekend, meaning Memorial Day visitors should take extra precautions.
The National Weather Service has issued for today and Saturday because of dry, dead fuel, low humidity and windy conditions — the ingredients for a wildfire.
Strong winds gusting from the southwest are expected to develop as another Pacific storm passes, for the most part, to the north of the state. The associated cold front will push winds down across northwestern and west-central Colorado, according to the National Weather Service.
The timing of the winds is still in question, but Saturday looks more potent than today, forecasters said.
Forecasters expect only “marginal moisture and increasing clouds” over northwestern Colorado on Saturday.
Almost all of , with just 7 percent of its 30-year average snowpack for this time of year.
On Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service reminded visitors to keep weather conditions in mind more than usual this summer, particularly high-wind advisories, because of the thousands of trees killed by bark beetles, mainly in the Arapaho-Roosevelt, White River and Medicine Bow-Routt national forests.
“Thousands of beetle-killed trees fall every day in these forests,” the agency warned.
to monitor weather forecasts, avoid patches of dead trees and consider carrying an ax to avoiding getting trapped.
“The dead trees are rotting in their roots and are now starting to rot above ground, making them susceptible to falling at unpredictable times,” said Cal Wettstein, incident commander of the U.S. Bark Beetle Incident Management Organization, in a news release.
“With the resulting openings in the forest tree canopy, the live trees, with all their needles, are catching in the wind like sails, causing them to blow over and pull the dead trees down with them,” Wettstein said. “This makes it especially dangerous to be in these beetle-kill areas in windy conditions.”
More people are expected to visit Colorado’s mountains this weekend, the unofficial kickoff to the summer tourism season.
AAA Colorado predicted about today through Monday, a 1.4 percent increase over , when a snowpack of more than 200 percent of average left wintry conditions for visitors.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
