BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Intense heat continues today into tomorrow, with a dominant ridge of high pressure centered over Utah today, continuing our Heat Advisory in the valley. That means you'll see afternoon highs of 100 to 105 in the valley. More specifically, Bakersfield is facing a high of 104 today, not record breaking for the day but pushing us close to record heat for the year. Today will be our 65th day of 100s this season, close to second place which is 67 days of 100s observed first in 1939 and then tied in 2017.
This hot weather comes with more trapped wildfire smoke and bad air quality, which remains high in the "unhealthy for sensitive groups range".
As for the rest of Kern County, the Excessive Heat Warning in the Kern Desert continues with highs of 105 to 110 this afternoon. The Kern River Valley is hot too with many readings past 100 today while Tehachapi and Frazier Park are expecting mid-90s this afternoon.
We'll see some high thin clouds today, but we're staying dry.
As that high pressure moves toward the Four Corners region tomorrow, it looks to drag monsoonal moisture from Arizona into Kern County, leading to a chance for scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms. So expect some more cloud cover tomorrow and a more humid feeling as we wait to see how the scattered showers and potential for isolated thunderstorms develops. Right now I'll call it a 30% chance in the Desert, a 20% chance in our mountains, and a 10% chance in the valley. This easterly flow won't push out the bad air quality and doesn't bring any remarkable cooling, so expect it to stay hot and hazy while we feel a bit more humid tomorrow. With those evaporation rates, it does leave us with a concern for the threat of dry lightning potentially starting new wildfires in California's mountains.
Temperatures look to fall a few degrees Friday with another chance for showers that afternoon, mainly in the Sierra Nevada mountains to our north. Unfortunately we are looking ahead to a dry and hot weekend in the 90s, which is better but still above average with no strong westerly winds in the forecast to clear out this bad air quality. Expect much of next week to remain dry and hotter than what we hoped to see as we inch closer and closer to the beginning of Fall.
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