BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A trough digging in over California the past two days will stay in place for two more days. That continues a southwesterly flow over Kern County, which is helping temperatures stay warm but below average through the middle of the week. This dry pattern is windy at times through the mountain passes and down into the desert, but not enough to clear the thick smoke trapped from major fires burning around the state.
As a result, the Valley Air Quality forecast remains in the unhealthy for sensitive groups range with an Air Quality Alert in effect due to trapped wildfire smoke. As the French Fire continues to burn west of Lake Isabella, the smoke is the most concentrated in the Kern River Valley. If you can smell smoke, you are close enough for it to affect your health, so stay inside and protect your lungs.
And as for that warm weather, temperatures today will be similar to yesterday as a southwesterly flow continues, keeping some moisture in the air but no clouds. Expect a high of 93 in Bakersfield today, several degrees below our seasonal average of 96. Lake Isabella is looking for a high of 92, though thick smoke could keep temperatures down a bit. Tehachapi has a forecast of 95 with 93 in Frazier Park and a range of 90s down in the Kern Desert.
High pressure building on either side of the state will bring a warming trend back to average by Thursday with the upper 90s in the valley by Friday and a return to the 100s this weekend.
Those hot and hazy hundreds look to stick around through early next week, with a chance monsoonal moisture could get dragged in from the desert, bringing a slight chance for showers to the mountains but it's something we'll need to watch closely. For now there is no promising chance of rain in the forecast and any time monsoonal moisture is in the forecast we have a concern for dry lightning... so stay inside and protect your lungs from this bad air quality for now, and we'll watch that Sunday into Monday forecast closely to see how things develop.
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