Very high/extreme fire weather danger over parts of Colorado. More wind Thursday.

Added: 2026-05-06

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[00:00:18]>> [music] >> All right, my friends, let's break down what happens today into tomorrow because we have a couple days of some fire weather concerns here after what was a beautiful day on Tuesday hitting a lot of the 70s over the mountain valleys.

[00:00:31]Colorado Springs hit 80, 87 in Pueblo, so really warm for the time of year. No records, we missed those by a few degrees. Lamar did hit 92 as we moved into the afternoon. Things changing up today though as the upper level low is now moved onshore in northern California and it will continue to move eastward today and that jet that's rounding the base of that noses into Colorado puts us in an area of sinking air as the wind increases aloft and it's going to allow some of that air at the jet stream level to come down to the surface here as we move through the day. So it's another warm one. We get 90s over the far eastern plains, 80s along the front range again, 60s and 70s over the mountains where we come down a couple of degrees and that's because the warmest temperatures in the mid levels of the atmosphere start to shift off to the east a little bit. But it's all about the wind today and that impacts the feel. And so Banjo is going with a six on his barometer because we do have some pretty serious fire weather concerns across the area today. Now, it'll be really nice this morning. Over the mountains, the wind will start to pick up and as we hit the late part of the morning, it starts to get gusty along some of the eastern slopes and breezy on the valley floors. But in the late morning and the afternoon, we mix the atmosphere up to about 20,000 ft or so and that's going to allow momentum transport down to the surface a more than what the model is showing here.

[00:01:57]Been talking about that for the last few days, that is still the case. So as we head into the afternoon, we're still going to see some really strong wind, 50 mph or more over the San Luis Valley, uh mountain areas to around 50 mph and over the plains I think 40 mph or more on the gusts. It's not like it's going to be doing that the entire time in most areas, but we will see gusts up that strong. Notice western Kansas. You see where the wind kind of shifts from southwest to southeast, there's a dry line out there and that separates low-level moisture from the desert air that is going to be moving around pretty quick that we are going to have today.

[00:02:35]Strongest wind gusts will be in the San Luis Valley. Let's say the northern 2/3 of it and there may be some gusts stronger than 60 mph in this area. So there's a high wind warning that's up from 1:00 until 8:00. The rest of the area has a red flag warning, but southern Colorado's first PDS, particularly dangerous situation, red flag warning has been issued by the National Weather Service to include Lake and Chaffee County, the San Luis Valley, the Sangre de Cristos, the Wet Mountain Valley and the foothills to the west of I-25 around Walsenburg and Trinidad.

[00:03:09]What this means is that we're just on the high end of thresholds and historically something that only happens about every two to four years with the combination of wind and humidity that is going to be in the single digits. So the rest of the area has a red flag warning, we're just not on that very high end criteria. And what they look for over the plains and the San Luis Valley is 55 mph wind gusts or more and single digit humidity, our wind gusts should stay lower than that across the eastern plains, but the humidity levels are really, really low. We're in the single digits very, very easy. So again, we're on the west side of the dry line. If we get a fire today, weather is not going to be good news for that and certainly hamper fighting efforts. On the east side of the dry line, there is some low-level moisture and so there is a chance of a severe storm. Now, I show you the paintballs. This is three different computer models and I've kind of colorized just in one color for each different model, where it thinks a severe thunderstorm updraft might be and you don't see a lot out there. There's one model that kind of picks up on a couple storms in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

[00:04:18]Yesterday, this model that I'm showing you here did have storms in Kansas.

[00:04:22]Today, it's capping the atmosphere. So it's not a guarantee that a storm goes, but if it does, it will be kind of on the stronger end of things. I'll keep an eye on that. I think most of it's in Kansas. Overnight tonight, we stay breezy, poor humidity recovery, that's why the red flag warning lasts until midnight and as we move into Thursday, we still have fire weather concerns even though it's going to be cooler behind a front that moves through in the morning, we will see strong enough wind that a red flag warning has been issued again.

[00:04:54]And so the wind is still going to be out of the southwest over the mountains picking up again. Maybe some strong gusts along some of the eastern slopes of the southern Sangres in the morning to the west of Trinidad, but then it picks back up out of the southwest. That actually ends up kind of expanding across the plains as we head into the afternoon, more of a westerly direction than what we'll have out there today, but again, another day of some fire weather concerns. So I'll say this about today. If you see smoke, please call 911 because it is a day where we have some critical fire weather concerns and those continue into tomorrow. Have a good day.