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Flooding in the Mississippi Valley; Fire Weather in California; Tropical Cyclone Rafael

A cold front will stall near the Mississippi River Valley today with excessive rainfall bringing areas of flooding over parts of the region. Gusty winds and dry conditions will drive critical to extremely critical fire weather over portions of central and southern California through Thursday. Tropical Storm Watches have been issued for parts of the Florida Keys ahead of Tropical Cyclone Rafael. Read More >

Overview
Effective midnight Monday, June 25, 2018, (0600 Coordinated Universal Time - UTC), the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Riverton, Wyoming, will change its current fire weather forecast zone boundaries in western Wyoming.  Fire weather zones that will be impacted by this change include WYZ277, WYZ278, WYZ279, WYZ414, WYZ415, and WYZ416.  Additionally, the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Pocatello, Idaho, will adjust the boundary of WYZ411 to ensure consistency with the altered boundary of WYZ415.  Other minor cosmetic changes were made to fire weather forecast zone boundaries WY277, WYZ278, and WYZ279.

After this change, WFO RIW fire weather forecast zones covering the Bridger-Teton National Forest will align with the Fire Danger Rating Areas of that forest.  These changes were initiated by the partner and will improve services for partners in western Wyoming.  Fire weather forecast zone numbers will not change as a result of these zone boundary adjustments.

Maps
Graphical descriptions of the old and new fire weather forecast zones are available below.

Current Western Wyoming Fire Zone Boundary Map

 

Proposed Western Wyoming Fire Zone Boundary Map

 

Comparison Map of Current & Proposed
Western Wyoming Fire Zone Boundaries

 

Text Products
NWS watch, warning and forecast products affected by these changes are:

Product WMO Heading AWIPS ID
NWS Riverton Fire Weather Watch WWUS85 KRIW RFWRIW
NWS Riverton Red Flag Warning WWUS85 KRIW RFWRIW
NWS Riverton Fire Weather Planning Forecast FNUS55 KRIW FWFRIW
NWS Pocatello Fire Weather Watch WWUS85 KPIH RFWPIH
NWS Pocatello Red Flag Warning WWUS85 KPIH RFWPIH
NWS Pocatello Fire Weather Planning Forecast FNUS55 KPIH FWFPIH

 

NWS partners and users will need to make necessary changes to their communications systems to accommodate these fire weather forecast zone changes.

A shapefile of the new fire weather forecast zones for WFO RIW and WFO PIH is online at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/geodata/catalog/wsom/html/firezone.htm

For more information, please contact:

  Tim Troutman - Warning Coordination Meteorologist
  12744 West US Highway 26
  Riverton, WY  82501
  307-857-3898 ext. 726
  tim.troutman@noaa.gov

National Service Change Notices are online at:   http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm