We're keeping an eye on the Tunnel 5 fire.
It's burning on the Washington side of the
gorge in Skamania and click at that counties.
The fire started burning earlier this week.
It's grown to more than 500 acr.
Now at least 10 homes have been destroyed
and SR14 is closed in that area.
No word yet on what started the fire.
It's about 5% contained today.
This time of year,
wind and humidity often play a huge role
in what happens next with wildf,
which is why we're turning to or
weather expert for a glimpse of
the future there in the gorge.
Here's chief meteorologist Matt Sofino.
And I understand a change is cog
for those fire conditions in the gorge.
Yeah,
that's right, Pat. You know,
hot weather and very low humidi.
Not great for fighting fire.
But wind is worse.
We'd rather have hot dry weather
with no wind then really strong
winds and cooler temperatures
because the wind as you would he
can imagine just moves the fire.
So here's what we're dealing with right now.
Our camera closest to that fire
in Hood River out in the Dallas
looking back towards Hood Riverd
you can see the haze and it's h,
100 degrees in the Dallas 10% humidity.
Similar conditions over in
Hood River and in Underwood.
But there is a change on the wa.
Look at the winds we reported ie
Dallas right are in the gorge right now
calm and Hood River basically calm in the.
Dallas, calm out to the east tot
is going to change in a very large way.
Starting tomorrow.
Now we've got a fire weather wag
for the Willamette Valley as wel
until later on tonight because f
the hot weather will cool off tomorrow.
Also air quality issues with the smoke
that came down from Canada last night.
But back to the wind of the gor.
This is our forecast for the winds over the
next 48 hours and we put numbers to this.
Here's Carson, here's Hood River right
here where you see the color of the blue.
That's roughly where Underwood is and
watch what happens as we go through time.
We'll stop this tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM,
the winds are still pretty light throughout
of the West, 6 to 9 miles an ho.
But by tomorrow afternoon, look at this.
They're sustained 14 to 20.
And that's not the gust,
that's just the sustained wind.
So that is problematic as those
winds increase tomorrow morning,
pardon me, and tomorrow afterno,
we're getting gusts or not gust.
Sustained winds.
Of 25 miles an hour in Hood
River and Underwood.
So this is the change that
we're worried about Pat,
with these strong westerly wind.
Now it's possible that because
the fire was burning in a certan
way that that this could burn,
it could push these winds could push the
fire back over areas that already burned.
But that's there's a lot of hope
involved in that and the strong
winds are going to make it extry
difficult to fight that fire ine
gorge and they're going to conte
these strong winds into Fridays.
So a couple of days on the way.
I mean really now through
tomorrow morning is the.
Best opportunity for the firefighters
to really get a handle on this d
and do as much work as they can,
which I'm sure they will.
OK.
The good news about the change
the weather for us is that the
smoke is going to get cleared o.
This is our smoke model saw
high level smoke mainly.
It's getting pushed away thoughs
we see that change in the weathr
come later on during the week.
Then of course 96 in Portland wd
record high temperatures in the valley
today starting in Portland we me
it up to 98 degrees at the airp.
Vancouver 96. Eugene,
nearly 100, Troutdale 98 as wel.
So record highs up and down the I5 corridor,
Pat. And this is going to contie
a little bit tomorrow.
We're going to see things drop
from the upper 90s to the low 9s
as we go into tomorrow afternoo.
So there's a little bit of
improvement on the way there.
All right, Matt. So quick quest,
going back to that Underwood area where the
winds going to start howling, I mean that
sounds like a real problem.
I I really think it will be.
And I was talking about this yesterday going,
boy, I hope they can get a lot of work done
today because the winds have been calm.
They're still calm now,
but by tomorrow those are strong winds.
The gorgeous, famous for its strong winds,
the windsurfers and the kite
borders love it and it's going
to be a great pattern for them.
But boy, it's going to push andk
on that fire in a very large wa.
So that is going to be pretty
difficult for the firefighters o
contend with as we go through.
It will be cooler still near 90 tomorrow,
but then much cooler for
the weekend in the 80s.
And again,
no rain other than coastal driz.
Of course,
that doesn't really matter when you're
talking about a fire out in the gorge.
All right, so another question.
Yesterday was the hottest
day on this planet ever,
as far as we know.
What's up with that?
Is this global warming coming
to rest with all of us?
Well, global warming is is has a footprint
or fingerprints on our weather nearly
every single day to varying deg.
Keep in mind this is preliminary
data from the University of Mai,
so it needs to be verified and the science
and the research will continue to do that.
But this is what we expect and e
earth is basically now our avere
temperature is about two degrees
warmer than the 1880 to 1910 baseline.
And here's what happens when you change,
you may think 2 degrees,
what's the big deal, right.
Well, look at this bell curve
and focus on this one here.
We'll get to. This one in a sec.
Most of our weather occurs in te
big fat part of the bell curve.
If you know any statistics,
you know how that works and
the extremes are less likely.
Cold extremes here, Hot extremes here.
But look what happens if you
just shift it a little bit.
A small change in the average,
which is what this means.
The average weather, you know,
there's still a big overlap,
doesn't change all that much.
But the extremes change in a huge way.
That means our extremes are now much hotter
than they used to be in the old climate.
They may not happen all that frequently,
but they're going to be worse than they were.
They're going to be hotter than they were.
We're going to see far fewer extreme blows.
And that's been the case
over the last 1020 years.
So yeah,
hottest day on record yesterday being
reported by the University of M.
We're likely going to see more
of those in the years to come.
Wow, super interesting.
I love when you really go deep
and nerd out on this stuff.
One final, final question,
going back to the the fire weat.
Am I right in thinking that the
wind is following low pressure?
So it's it's going from high
pressure to low pressure?
Exactly. That's exactly
how and why wind blows.
And so what's happening now
is we're going to see with the
cooler air on the West side,
that increases the pressure
because cooler air is more dens.
So we'll have higher pressure
on the West side,
the heat low as we call it,
which is where the hottest air ,
which has been kind of hovering
around Western Oregon.
It's kind of a widespread area s
time around that's going to shit
east of the Cascades and the wid
will do exactly what you said,
follow the pressure from high to low, right.
And then it's enhanced, of cour,
by the terrain and the gorge,
which is what makes the gorge so special.
Yeah. All right. Always a treato
have you on, Matt. Thank you so much.