First Alert Weather Day: High Fire Danger with warm and windy conditions

we have a first alert weather day today because of high fire danger across the state now yesterday afternoon we watched a few showers and a stray storm roll through today the story changes we're bringing in much stronger winds we're bringing in warm temperatures and we're also going to filter in Smoke to our Sky you'll notice color on the map all the red that's where we have these red flag warnings that are going into effect so a lot of our region under a Red Flag Warning today because of dry windy conditions again on top of that we're going to be filtering in some smoke from nearby wildfires burning into the Southwest that is going to filter into our Sky later this afternoon we're talking light to moderate smoke developing into the mountains first before becoming thicker into the evening tonight now it looks like the worst of the smoke will be later on tonight and into the overnight hours but you'll notice the darker the color when we start to see those oranges that's when we're looking at moderate to Thick Smoke in our sky for the day today and into the overnight so we'll keep our eye on that uh throughout the afternoon noon and into the early morning hours on Friday as well we also are keeping our eye on these red flag warnings they go in effect today at noon and remain in place through 8:00 p.m. tonight we're talking humidity under 20% for all counties in the red there are some places that could get as low as 10% so really dry conditions and winds gusting up to 40 m hour both of those will Aid in Rapid Fire spread if there is a spark to ignite a fire so that's certainly something we want to be mindful of if we have activities outside today and be really careful uh with anything that could spark a fire as we look at wind gust this will give you a better picture of what we can expect for our winds this afternoon starting to see winds really increase into the Northwest first looking at Meer Glenwood Springs over towards Steamboat we reach the I25 Corridor around 3 4:00 these winds will really start to pick up for us Front Range getting to 20 to 40 miles per hour and then overnight they calm for I25 by about 9:00 we'll see the strongest winds over into the Eastern Plains and winds will really taper heading into the overnight hours as far as temperatures go looking to reach 92 today at the airport it is going to be another hot day today we have low to mid99s through Pueblo into Lamar and Springfield this afternoon as the 80s pop up in Montrose Grand Junction and wrangley today and up into the High Country 60s and 70s Statewide we are above average and again we are dry and windy for the day by tomorrow we'll wake up to some of that haze from the wildfires but 82 de tomorrow feeling much better outside a really nice afternoon sunshine and average for this time of year looking ahead to the weekend things look great mostly sunny pretty quiet a straight PM chance of a storm on Saturday that will keep our eye on a really slight chance there otherwise pretty great conditions into the weekend and it's not until next week but we'll finally start to feel a little more like we should for this time of year as our temperatures slide into the low 80s even seeing some upper 70s through Wednesday and Thursday of next week