Fire Danger Rising, PG&E Issues Shutoff Watch

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High pressure will give the North Bay and the entire Bay Area a significant warm up this week, with fire concerns rising as winds increase by midweek.

Many places in the North Bay will reach near 90 degrees by Wednesday, which will further dry out already parched vegetation. Along with that, dry north winds will be with us at times, probably reaching their peak late on Wednesday and early Thursday with gusts over the hills of Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties reaching up to 45 mph as this forecast shows.

Will this be enough to trigger PG&E power shutoffs? Everyone hopes not, but at this point the utility is only saying that they are a possibility for portions of the North Bay and northern Sierra.

They have issued a shutoff “watch” for late Wednesday into Thursday for customers in much of Northern California.

The National Weather Service will very likely be issuing Red Flag Warnings within the next two days, and we will be posting additional updates as the situation develops.