After a few days of mainly lighter wind flow – which allowed smoke to spread and plague much of the state – westerly, onshore winds are going to be increasing into Friday and the weekend.
While this means fresher air and eventually somewhat cooler temperatures west of the Cascades, the wind flow will increase each afternoon and evening starting Friday.
This is going to be bad news for fire crews still handling multiple very large fires.
In fact, on Thursday afternoon, the Three Queens Fire north of Lake Kachess started spreading, producing significant smoke that blew east toward Leavenworth. This fire started back in mid-July after lightning storms, but only spread quickly with a sudden increase in westerly wind on Thursday.
A Red Flag Warning has been issued for Friday and Saturday for almost all of the state east of the Cascades and while the winds won’t be as strong as last weekend, wind gusts of 25-35 mph with isolated higher gusts can be expected each afternoon. I believe the winds will be a recurring problem each afternoon and evening Sunday into early next week as well, though humidity might not be quite as low.
Still, these winds will cause fires to spread and, under the worst of circumstances, spread embers downwind, possibly causing new “spot fires.”
Be very careful to avoid anything that could cause a spark with these conditions.
West of the Cascades, temperatures will be milder with morning clouds and afternoon sun this weekend (following one more hot, hazy day Friday), and fire danger is high in Western Washington as well.
I don’t see any chance of rain in sight through at least the next week to ten days.
A question after this smoky episode in Western Washington: Will it return?
We can almost certainly say “yes” because we have a lot of summer to go, and we’re bound to have more easterly wind, or offshore wind, episodes that will import wildfire smoke into the lowlands west of the Cascades. The next potential might be late next week toward the middle of August, though the forecast details are like the smoky days – still a bit murky at this point.