Carson City area weather: Thunderstorms likely to continue through the weekend
Thunderstorms made their way into Carson City and surrounding counties Friday evening, bringing rain showers and several lightning strikes into the region. Thunder showers are expected to persist into Saturday with a slight chance of rain on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather service advises the likelihood of showers with lightning continuing overnight into early Saturday morning from Lake Tahoe to western Nevada south of US-50. Then by early Saturday afternoon, another round of storms are possible near the Sierra and then spreading into western Nevada mid-late afternoon, bringing the best chance for rain in the main urban areas including Reno, Sparks and Carson City, NWS forecasters said.
The storms are expected to exit the region by mid to late Saturday evening. There's a slight chance for storms, around 10 to 20 percent, Sunday afternoon, especially in Mineral and southern Lyon Counties and Mono County in California.
Meanwhile, smoke and haze from the Park Fire will continue to affect northeast California and northern and western Nevada into the weekend, although many areas have seen some improvement in air quality Friday as winds over the fire were directing smoke more northward into north central California.
Smoke models show some west winds returning to the fire late Friday, so smoke could return to parts of northwest and west central Nevada Friday night into Saturday morning, according to the weather service.
The increased chances for rain and southeast winds ahead of the shortwave passage could provide a temporary break in additional smoke reaching these areas during the day Saturday, before a southwest to west flow Saturday evening and Sunday that would increase the risk of smoke from the Park Fire returning to similar parts of northeast northwest and west central Nevada.
Hot weather to return?
Saturday will be a few degrees cooler than recent days due to increased cloud cover along with thunderstorm chances, forecasters said. Then as the upper level ridge rebuilds over the Four Corners region and extends westward across much of the Great Basin, we'll see temperatures warm up to the upper 90s to near 100 degrees in western Nevada valleys from Sunday through much of next week, about 3-6 degrees above early August averages with moderate heat risk prevailing.