Heat and Wildfire Threat Persist as Storms Move Through Idaho

[00:00:00]Now, Isaiah Sharp with the Idaho News 6 forecast.

[00:00:04]>> Definitely one of the more active weather weeks we have experienced.

[00:00:07]Usually during the summertime, all I got to talk about is heat and dry skies.

[00:00:11]Outside of that, it's not not crazy, but what we're seeing right now is a lot of monsoon moisture, unfortunately causing lightning strikes, and it's causing things like this. Take a look at these photos. This is the Baja fire from yesterday. Luckily, at this point, there's 100% containment. We're not sure about control on this fire, but it looks as though things are starting to look up a little bit for the region. Some of that fire retardant getting dumped from those planes, absolutely amazing.

[00:00:38]Current temperature sitting into those 90s. We've got some light winds, but we've got a lot of activity that is happening just to the east of us. As you can see, Mountain Home and Glenns Ferry, these polygons that are popping up, the yellow that's indication of a special weather report. This red one right here is severe thunderstorm warnings for the region. On top of that, we're watching out for the potential of some flash flooding on top of this, too, with all of the water that is falling. And yes, we do have a 15,000 acre fire in Lincoln County we're paying attention to the Black Ridge 2 fire that Idaho Department of Lands confirmed. We still don't know much about it because there isn't tons of news on this Friday. So, we'll watch out for that 15,000 acre fire and watch out for these thunderstorms that potentially could cause even more wildfires with the stray lightning strikes in the region. And it's hot, very hot. 96 in Boise. Yesterday, we saw 102, so it's nice to see a little bit of a decline in temperatures, but moving forward, nothing but triple digits is on the way. Across the board in our extended forecast, it's going to be a lot of heat. I'll show you that coming up in just a couple of moments. Dry skies to kick off the weekend. That is at least some good news that's on the way, but we are expecting some more storms in the forecast. Going into Saturday afternoon, we might see a couple of storms popping up near Twin Falls. Boise, I'm expecting to stay nice and dry.

[00:01:59]Heading into our Sunday, clearer conditions are on the way and that's going to last until about Monday. When Monday night arrives, we'll start to see some more development of that monsoonal moisture. There it goes, popping on up over the top of Utah, Nevada, and then making its way into the Gem State. And then going into Tuesday, a little bit more activity is on the way, sitting at about a 40% chance of showers. And Tuesday night, we could see some activity for parts of Idaho. I've been mentioning it, warmer than normal conditions are going to stick around, but wetter than normal weather on top of this too as we head to the close of July. So, no surprise if we see some more thunderstorm activity close out the rest of this month. Temperatures going into tomorrow, triple digits for most of us, but upper 90s for everybody, no matter what. We're also going to experience smoke because of the Oregon wildfires and that air shifting on over into the Gem State. So, don't be surprised if there's a little bit of haze on the horizon going into our Saturday. I mentioned that triple digits across the board, except for Friday, which is 99°. Yeah, so far off from triple digits and I wouldn't be surprised if that bumps up into 100° ranges. 30% chance of showers expected on Wednesday, that's about it, but the rest of it, it's going to be hot. Stay cool and stay hydrated as much as you can this week.