Extensive Heat, Spotty Fires and Storms Continue
7/22/2009 3:40 PM
By Alex
Sosnowski
AccuWeather.com
The extreme heat over the West
will continue to trigger sporadic wildfires and ironically isolated incidents of
flash
flooding through the weekend and beyond.
Wildfires have been igniting and ongoing over parts of the region in the last several weeks. The heat is the main driving force behind the fires,
causing vegetation to become tinder dry, providing the fuel. The heat is fueling the storms.
Lightning strikes and human carelessness remain
the primary causes of the fires.
Clusters of thunderstorms that have formed recently have led to incidents of
flash flooding
in the rural areas and urban flooding in some of the cities of the interior Southwest.
On Wednesday, storms clobbered Hagerman, N.M., and left behind flooded underpasses and city streets.
Most of the storms will congregate in
the
Southwest on Thursday. However, a disturbance from the Pacific could cause a pulse of storms in
the Northwest and British
Columbia Thursday night into Friday.
The heat alone is causing its share of problems. Temperatures surging past 100 degrees during the first half of the week led to fears of power
outages as demands for electricity exceeded availability in portions of interior California.
Swells from storms in the South Pacific are expected to build the waves just a bit toward the weekend along
Huntington Beach, Calif., where the U.S. Open of Surfing
is currently underway.
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