Carson City area weather: Threat of thunderstorms bring fire, flash flooding concerns
The potential of afternoon and evening thunderstorms around the Carson City region and much of western Nevada has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a Fire Weather Watch as well as raise concern for the potential for flash flooding near recent wildfire areas.
The weather service says the potential for new fire starts from lightning, carried by strong outflow winds are possible Wednesday and Thursday afternoon and early evening, with heavy rainfall and the possibility for flash flooding in recent burn areas such as the Numbers Fire south of Gardnerville and the Poeville Fire on Peavine Mountain near Reno.
The Fire Weather Watch is from 2 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and again on Thursday, 2 to 9 p.m.
On Tuesday afternoon Douglas County issued a statement, informing residents near the Numbers Fire area to be aware of potential flash flooding, noting the National Weather Service has outlined the potential for thunderstorms in the burn area of the Numbers Fire on Wednesday and Thursday with the potential for flooding the rest of the week in the Fish Springs and Ruhenstroth areas.
The Numbers Fire burned intensely near the wildland urban interface in the Pine Nut Creek and Smelter Creek watersheds.
Affected areas in the watch include the Lake Tahoe basin, Carson City, Douglas, Storey, southern Washoe, western Lyon and far southern Lassen counties, and along the southern Sierra Front including Alpine, Northern Mono, Southern Lyon and western Mineral counties.
The NWS stated that it has medium confidence that isolated to scattered thunderstorms will form Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, lasting into the early evening each day. Storms will be a hybrid mix of wet and dry, however with recent unusual low humidity, vegetation could be extra receptive to new lightning caused fire starts, forecasters say.
Lightning can create new fire starts and may combine with strong outflow winds to cause a fire to rapidly grow in size and intensity before first responders can contain them, the weather service states. These storms could also produce heavy rains directly under the cores, which could result in debris flows downstream of recent burn areas.
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