Sunday is a new day, but we can expect the same winds we saw on Saturday: 25 to 35 mph gusts from the north west. Sunday will be the last day of strong winds in the Valley, but the high fire danger continues – the Red Flag Warning for high fire danger lasts through Monday afternoon, because of very low humidity by Monday.
Saturday was a cooler and blustery day, with winds in most areas of the Valley gusting 30 to 35 mph. Fresno-Yosemite Int’l Airport officially had a gust to 33 mph. Tulare County did not see quite as much wind, as gusts in Visalia, Tulare, and Porterville were closer to 25 mph.
These winds roared across the coastline (there were numerous 50+ mph gusts north of San Francisco at the coast), through the Coast Range, and down the Valley… but not up over the Sierra -they’re just too tall for that, until you go south to Kern County. The far southern Sierra and Tehachapi mountains are smaller, so that’s where the winds leaked out into the Mojave Desert – and they were STRONG there! Right below the east side of the Tehachapi’s and far southern Sierra there were numerous 60 mph and an occasional 70 mph gust. West of Lancaster, near Mojave and Inyokern… it was very windy in the desert Saturday…