Carson City area weather: Cooler and less smoke through Friday
National Weather Service forecasters say a cold front moving into the region Wednesday will help push some, but likely not all, of the wildfire smoke out of the Carson City, Carson Valley and Dayton areas for the next couple days and will bring much cooler temperatures.
Forecasters say the cold front moving through will bring a shift in the winds to a more northeasterly direction that will help improve air quality for many areas. On Tuesday, smoke from the Caldor Fire in El Dorado County, Calif., brought air quality measurements to levels of "hazardous" and "very unhealthy" between Reno, Carson City, Carson Valley and Lyon County.
This improvement will last into Thursday and possibly much of Friday. Light westerly winds may bring smoke back into the region Friday afternoon but confidence in that is fairly low right now, NWS forecasters say.
With that, areas around Lake Tahoe, Carson City, the Carson Valley, and into parts of Lyon, Alpine, and Mono counties will see continued significant smoke impacts Wednesday morning from the large Caldor Fire, before conditions improve this afternoon with a change in wind direction. Monitor fire.airnow.gov for the latest smoke and air quality conditions.
This same cold front will bring cooler and drier air to the region starting Wednesday. High temperatures Wednesday and Thursday will generally range from the mid 70s to lower 80s, about 10-15 degrees below normal. Overnight lows mainly in the 40s to lower 50s for lower elevations will feel quite chilly, certainly when compared to the hot summer experienced thus far.
While no widespread frosts or freezes are expected in lower elevation valleys, some of the typically colder mountain valleys such as around Truckee, Bridgeport, and Loyalton could see temperatures dip to near freezing Thursday morning, according to the weather service.