A more tranquil weather pattern means less wind across the state on Sunday, but dry conditions and rising temperatures will still present challenges for firefighters battling blazes across Colorado.
As of 8 a.m., the National Weather Service had not issued any red flag warnings for the state — a change from Saturday, when most of the western part of Colorado and portions of northeast Colorado were under red flag warnings, said Mike Baker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
“It’s a different sort of day today, and that’s a good thing (for firefighters),” Baker said. “Winds will be lighter, but you’ll still have heating with temperatures back up into the 80s and 90s at lower elevations, and in the 60s and 70s in the mountains, which is pretty typical for late June and early July.”
A storm that rolled through the northern part of the state on Saturday left southern Colorado “high and dry,” Baker said, but yesterday’s cool-down also helped fires, particularly in Durango, produce less smoke as cool air became trapped in valleys overnight.
The smoky valley conditions will clear by mid-morning as the warmer air near the ground flips with the cooler air above it as it’s heated by the sun, a process known as thermal inversion.
“Instead of being concentrated at the closest 2,000 feet to the ground it’ll have a chance to dissipate to 8,000 to 10,000 feet into a thicker layer of the atmosphere,” Baker said.
A general lack of cloud cover statewide will push temperatures higher as compared with Saturday, as well as allowing smoke columns that “laid down” overnight to rise up to 25,000 feet into the atmosphere, sucking fresh oxygen in at the bottom, Baker said.
“That’s usually when we expect to see the fires at their most intense today, around 1 or 2 p.m.,” said Baker, who formerly advised safety officials on-site at wildfires. “I’ve been at many fires where this happens and all of sudden it just looks like a volcano-type thing and the smoke rises very quickly.”
One area of concern is the Weston Pass fire, 9 miles southwest of Fairplay. At 4,000 acres and with 10 percent containment, the federal government has brought in a Type 1 Incident command team to address the situation.
“It’s a smoker all right,” Baker said. “It’s right on the interface between the forest and the grasslands, along 285 south of Fairplay, and they’ve got Highway 160 closed.”
The National Weather Service said it’s possible they’ll see “dry thunderstorms” in that area late afternoon, which may produce micro-bursts of wind but not much moisture.
“If we start seeing some really gusty storms passing through, we could put out a short-fused red flag warning,” Baker said. “But right now I think those are going to be few and far between.”
In Denver on Sunday, meteorologists expect warm, sunny conditions with a high near 90 degrees.
