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ST. GEORGE — Strong wind gusts already impacting central and southern Utah are only expected to intensify Wednesday, while continued dry conditions are creating new fire risks in southwestern Utah.
The mixture of the two, along with warming temperatures, is why the National Weather Service on Tuesday issued Utah's first red flag warning of the year the Color Country Mountains and Mojave Desert, effective Wednesday.
Dry conditions, wind and warmth are all ingredients for a red flag warning. The weather service issues these warnings whenever warm temperatures, low humidities and strong winds collide, such as this week. Sustained winds of 20-30 mph with gusts up to 55 mph are forecast for the region, along with an 8% humidity and temperatures in the 70s.
While this isn't the first strong wind event of the year for southern Utah, Christine Kruse, the lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Salt Lake City office, said another component in the equation is the impacted region's grass and vegetation dryness, commonly referred to as fuels.
"We are just now seeing our fuels reach that critical status for the St. George area," she said. "This is the first red flag warning for the year because that's the first time we've met that requirement."
The strong winds Tuesday and Wednesday are the result of a low-pressure system crossing through California and Nevada Tuesday into Wednesday, Kruse explained. As it slowly makes its way into Utah, the system is causing strong wind gusts across the central and southern parts of the state.
The weather service also issued wind advisories all over both regions for Tuesday and Wednesday, where gusts are expected to reach or exceed 50 to 55 mph even in areas outside of the red flag warning.
The storm itself is expected to impact the Wasatch Front and northern Utah when it does arrive in the Beehive State Wednesday evening, providing valley rain and mountain snow into Thursday morning.
Summer is essentially on the other side of the storm as a high-pressure system is then expected to set up over the state. Kruse said temperatures are forecast to reach close to 100 in the St. George area this weekend, while they climb into the 80s for the first time along the Wasatch Front. Warmer, drier conditions are in the long-range outlook as well.
With that forecast and the below-average precipitation for most of the state so far this year, more red flag warnings are expected on the horizon. That's especially true of southwest Utah before other regions are included.
"Most of southern Utah was in the much-below average precipitation percentile from January through April — it's been dry down there," Kruse said. "We did have a bunch of weeks where we were below normal precipitation-wise, where it essentially did not precipitate, so that's driven the gap toward that below-average to much-below average range."
Kevin Greenhalgh, the deputy director of the U.S. Forest Service's Regional Fire and Aviation Management, said last week that the conditions he saw in the region led him to believe there's "potentially an early (fire) season" there. So far it has been quiet; there have been 108 reported fires this year burning a combined total of about 370 acres across Utah, according to federal and state firefighters.
The weather service recommends that people do not conduct any burns unless barrels are covered with a weighted metal cover and extinguish all outdoor fires properly during a red flag warning. People also shouldn't leave a fire unattended and shouldn't throw cigarettes or matches out of a moving vehicle.
More fire safety tips can be found here.
