Great Basin Fire Potential Briefing: May 15, 2026

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Good morning. Shelby Law here with your Great Basin Predictive Services Fire Potential Outlook. We are demoing a new format to the outlook today and we're looking for your feedback. So, please pay attention to the forecast and let us know what you think. We're looking specifically for information on length of the of the briefing content that's included and then um how easy it is to view some of the images if there are too many images on one slide, for example.

[00:00:21]Um, we're also considering adding a weekly fuels briefing to our um to our suite and we would take out some of the fuels information from the daily briefing and add additional information and and just um produce one of those briefings once a week. So, let us know what your thoughts are on that and um have a great weekend.

[00:00:39]Here are your fire potential headlines for Friday, May 15th, 2026. We've got seasonal temperatures today with increasing winds through Sunday. A very strong cold front will move through this weekend, bringing showers and thunderstorms mainly to the eastern half of the area. Um, light winds with gradual warming will return midweek next week. As far as the fuels go, overall fuel conditions are closer to those seen in mid June, as was evidenced by some of the fire activity we saw um with the wind event on Wednesday. Fire potential impacts for the next couple of days show some wind in place across eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and across some of the higher elevations of Utah today.

[00:01:10]Tomorrow, the wind will pick up across the southern Great Basin and some light showers will start to move into the north. On Sunday, we'll see the much cooler temperatures move in with that low and we'll and some continued dry, gusty winds across the far southern Great Basin. Yesterday was a quiet day with no preip or lightning.

[00:01:27]For activity yesterday was pretty quiet with only four fires for just under an acre, but our large fire growth was just under a thousand acres on a couple of our larger fires in western Wyoming and central Utah.

[00:01:39]Uh here we're looking at our ERC's for western Wyoming. The ERC's are very high for the time of year near record levels, but with the cooler um and more moist air mass moving in for this weekend, those actually drop quite a bit. Further south over the Arizona strip and southern Utah, those values are sitting near records um at for the time of year as well. But we won't see much preip or or really much in the way of cooler temperatures or higher RH's down there.

[00:02:01]So the fire danger will stay elevated.

[00:02:05]Okay, taking a look at our upper level heights here for the next uh six days.

[00:02:10]It shows dry westerly flow in place across the Great Basin today. We can see that low starting to move into the Pacific Northwest. Tomorrow, the low will continue to draw closer to the Great Basin and we'll see a band of uh light showers possibly moving through Utah tomorrow. Um and increasing winds across the north. On Sunday, the low drops into the Great Basin, bringing much cooler temperatures to the area.

[00:02:30]Even though it felt like June the other day, it is still May. And this is a May uh spring storm coming in bringing much cooler temperatures.

[00:02:38]Some of those the northerly flow will continue on Monday, but we'll start to see drier air moving in. Um and then we'll kind of see that northerly flow stick with us into the first part of next week with gradual warming and drying across the area as the ridge builds um off the coast. So, taking a look at the winds and RH here for today.

[00:02:55]Gusty winds still in place across western Wyoming with gusts up to 30 35 miles an hour. Minimum RH's are still on the low side for most of the area as well. On Saturday, the winds pick up more um really across eastern Idaho and continue to be gusty over western Wyoming. And then we'll also see um strong southwest winds picking up over southern Utah and the Arizona strip. We could see some isolated storms with some gusty outflow winds as well. Um RH's do start to come up on Saturday across the north, but we'll still see drier values further south. And then on Sunday, very strong, mainly northerly flow across much of the northern Great Basin, Idaho, and into Nevada. Here in Utah, we'll still be prefrontal, so strong, very strong, gusty winds and still dry conditions out ahead of that front.

[00:03:40]Gusts up to 40, 50 miles an hour. So, a pretty critical day across southern uh Utah on Sunday.

[00:03:48]On Monday, continued northerly flow is in place across the Great Basin for very cool temperatures. RH has really come up across um much of the area, Idaho, western Wyoming, and across much of Utah. Nevada still staying on the drier side. Um and then as we head into the first of next week, the winds lighten up. Um and we'll see some drying gradually move back into the eastern half of the Great Basin.

[00:04:12]Just a note on temperatures, this low is very cold, so our maximum temperatures on Sunday are going to drop back down into the 50s for most of the area. Still warm across the very southern tip of the Great Basin. Um and our minimum temperatures are going to be back down around freezing. So we are looking for a hard freeze in some areas which could impact um some of our vegetation out there. And we will also see um some snow uh high elevation snow with this precipitation on Sunday um due to that those cold temperatures. Quick look at the precipitation here. Um not much not much expected for today. On Saturday, we could see some preet moving into the central Idaho mountains as well as a little band of showers, some isolated thunderstorms here in central and up into northeast Utah. The more widespread cooler precipitation moves in on Sunday with um low elevation rain and some high elevation snow, especially over northeast Utah and parts of western Wyoming. Some of that precipitation will linger, especially over the eastern areas, into Monday and then clearing for the first part of next week.

[00:05:09]the 7 days precipitation a significant fire potential outlook. We have a lot of yellows on the map today um with some browns across the far southern Great Basin. Uh starting tomorrow, we'll see a lot of those zones move to green across the north with that strong cold front and precipitation into the first part of next week, but we will still see some of those browns remaining across the southern tip of of Utah um as the dry and very windy conditions continues um Sunday into Monday. Um and then early next week, gradual return to yellows across the north. The extended forecast for May 20th through the 24th puts above normal temperatures in place across much of the western US, although not quite as strong as we have seen. Um and then near normal precipitation for that time frame as well. That concludes today's briefing. Please check back on Monday for the latest updates.