The prospect of thunderstorms and strong gusty outflow winds Thursday afternoon have prompted forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Reno to issue a Fire Weather Watch for northeast California and the far northern Sierra.
The Fire Weather Watch will be in effect from Thursday afternoon through Thursday evening.
Isolated to scattered thunderstorms are forecast Thursday afternoon, lasting into the early evening. 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 that their confidence with this scenario is medium. It is too soon to tell how extensive lightning outside storm cores will be or how much rainfall is possible each day. However, enough risk is present to warrant a fire weather watch.
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.
