You may be a weather nerd if you know that "wet bulb" temperatures are a better measurement of heat risk than "dew point." Or that RFDs — "rear-flank downdrafts" of rain and hail-cooled air — often provide the wind shear necessary to spin up tornadoes.
"Dry lightning" is another head-scratcher. Across much of Canada and the western United States, relative humidities are very low, and lightning can strike with no rain reaching the ground to extinguish resulting wildfires. These areas are often rugged, with few roads to aid firefighters trying to douse the flames. Dry lightning is thought to be responsible for large woodland fires from California into much of Canada.
It's ironic, but with hundreds of blazes burning to our north, many of them out of control, our best odds of blue-sky days will come with southerly winds and warm fronts, not cooler fronts originating from our northern neighbor.
I see showers Friday, especially north of the metro area. More showers sprout Saturday afternoon into early Sunday. Northwest winds may mean more smoke. Ugh.
