Wildfire smoke has migrated back into the Las Vegas valley this weekend, primarily coming from a new fire just north of Santa Maria, CA called the Gifford Fire at over 39k acres. Date of origin was 8/1 and the blaze is at 5% containment. We have seen some air quality reduced to the 'moderate' category. That means a lot of the smoke is aloft and not fully integrating to lower elevations. Expect hazy skies to continue at least through Monday.
Temperatures are heating up this week with a high of 108 Monday - that's 4 degrees warmer than average - and we'll continue to warm Tuesday (109) and Wednesday (110). An Extreme Heat Watch will go into effect Wed/Thurs for the Lower Colorado River Valley, Eastern Mojave Co in Arizona and Southern San Bernadino Co in California. At this time, the heat alert has not been extended into Las Vegas.
Southwesterly winds continue to pick up in the afternoon hours with gusts around 22mph. We'll see that again on Monday and Tuesdays. Expect blowing dust and debris.
