Foothill resident Margaret Pross took this photo of Friday's sunset.
Cooler temperatures forecast for this weekend will come with a price.
The National Weather Service in Reno has issued fire weather watches from noon to 11 p.m. for Sunday and Monday.
Those fire weather watches could turn into Carson Valley’s the first red flag warnings of 2021 for critical fire danger due to low humidity and gusty winds.
Gusty winds could fan embers from lightning strikes that occurred during last week’s thunderstorms.
The Weather Service reports around 165 cloud to ground strikes were detected Friday in parts of Mono, Lyon, Mineral and Churchill counites.
Thursday saw several lighting strikes over parts of the Sierra’s eastern slope and the Pine Nuts.
“If any holdover fire starts occurred from this lightning activity, they would likely show up with this afternoon’s very warm, dry and windy conditions,” National Weather Service Reno Meteorologist Mark Deutschendorf said Saturday morning. “Multiple sites in Western Nevada are forecast to reach the typical red flag wind and humidity criteria for at least a few hours.”
Today’s high is forecast to hit 91 degrees, with the wind out of the west at 15-20 mph, gusting to 30 mph in Minden.
Sunday will cool down to 88 degrees with similar winds in the afternoon. On Monday the high is forecast to hit 82 degrees, with the wind out of the southwest at 15-25 mph, gusting to 35 mph.
“Blowing dust is also possible downwind of the dry basin sinks,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Wendell Hohmann said Saturday morning.
By Wednesday the high temperature is forecast to drop to 71 degrees, 25 degrees cooler than the 96 degrees recorded in the Valley on June 3.
There isn’t much hope for precipitation in the forecast with only a slight chance of showers north of Interstate 80 on Wednesday night.
