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There’s a little bit of everything in the forecast today: Snow in the Northern Rockies, severe thunderstorms over the upper Midwest, a flood threat in the Southeast, plus, fire and red flag warnings in the West and Southwest.
A wintry mix will fall over five states between Tuesday and Wednesday, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Summer may only be four days away, but portions of Montana our under a winter storm watch and are expecting some heavy snow.
Around 8 inches is expected at elevations of 5000 feet and higher, while locally higher amounts of accumulation between 12-15 inches are possible above 6500 feet.
Best way to quit smoking? Put out the fire! Actually, today’s fire danger is no joke. A number of fires continue to burn throughout the West, prompting more evacuations.
The National Weather Service has issued a critical fire weather warning over northern Arizona, southern and eastern Utah, and Western Colorado, which has been expanded to include red flag warnings for 9 counties in Wyoming.
At least nine active fires are still burning in California, 3 in the central portion of the state and six in Southern California, according to the latest incident map by Cal Fire.
Four fires are burning in Arizona, including the Mangum Fire near near the North rim of the Grand Canyon; the Bighorn Fire in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, which prompted evacuations last week; The Bringham Fire in eastern Arizona.
However, the most concerning at present is the Bush Fire in the Tonto National Forest doubled in size on Sunday with no containment, and prompted officials to order mandatory evacuations on Monday and were going door-to-door on Tuesday to get residents to leave the Tonto Basin and Punkin Center.
The fire also led to closures for portions of State Route 87 and State Route 188.
Evacuations are also challenging the Arizona Red Cross shelter handling evacuees from the Tonto Basin and Punkin Center amid the coronavirus, where evacuees won’t be allowed to spend the night.
Instead, the shelter is serving as a cooling center where evacuees can stay for a few hours but will need to find other accommodations. The Red Cross will be renting hotel rooms for anyone who doesn’t have a place to say, AZCentral reports.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a warning over potential flash flooding from heavy rain along coastal areas of North Carolina I into the central and eastern portions of the state.
Thunderstorms will span across the northern Rockies into the upper Midwest on Tuesday bringing the potential for severe weather.
The National Weather Service is warning of severe thunderstorms over portions of north-central Nebraska, central and eastern South Dakota, eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.
