Weather lands another blow: Bone-dry Boise is about to get super windy, forecasters say
Hold on to your hats, Boiseans.
The Treasure Valley is in line for a windy few days as a pair of weather systems blow through the area Friday night and Monday morning. Wind gusts over the weekend could reach 30 miles per hour, and they could be 20-25 mph on Monday and Tuesday.
The first is a tropical system that will approach the Boise area and cause the air pressure to drop. As that happens, wind will rush from areas of higher pressure to areas of lower pressure.
“That tropical pressure is going to move through the area beginning late Friday night into Saturday,” Katy Branham, a forecaster for the National Weather Service, told the Idaho Statesman. “As that trough approaches, we are expecting the pressure gradients to tighten across the area.
“When pressure gradients tighten, we do see enhanced winds, especially across the valley with that. So as a result of that we have some decently strong northwesterly winds forecast for Saturday afternoon and evening.”
Boise will see sustained winds of 15-20 mph as the first system moves through over the weekend, with those gusts up to 30 mph. But the area will also benefit from a mostly cloudless sky and high temperatures of 60 on Saturday and 64 on Sunday, according to forecasts from the weather service.
That system will shift eastward toward the Magic Valley on Sunday, giving the Treasure Valley some still weather before a second system moves through.
“That next system that’s going to move in late Sunday ... that one looks to be more potent,” Branham said, though maybe not for Boise. “The strongest winds associated with that later system are going to be south of the Snake River Plain, especially across southeast Oregon. But we will see an increase in some gusty winds associated with that system as it moves through on Monday.”
Sustained winds for that system should be 10-15 mph in the Treasure Valley, with gusts up to 25 mph. Branham expects the Interstate 84 corridor from Caldwell to Boise to return to normal on Wednesday, with winds of 5 to 10 mph.
A dry start to the year
As March ticked over into April, Boise recorded its third-driest start to a year on record, according to the National Weather Service.
Boise received just 1.55 inches of precipitation between Jan. 1 and March 31 — more than 2 inches less than the average of 3.74 inches. The total for this year so far falls behind only 1992 (1.45 inches) and 1889 (1.51 inches).
Other locations in Idaho, including Jerome and Twin Falls, also have recorded starts to the year that rank them in the top-three driest on record.
