Rain may aid the fire fight in the Northwest in the week ahead

It was certainly a week to remember across much of the West, as the unusual early windstorm from Labor Day through Wednesday caused major issues with extreme fire spread and massive amounts of smoke.

From Washington to California, there have been pockets of very dense smoke, an orange sky and other unusual scenes.

Fires in Oregon, which even in recent active years, have largely avoided burning through populated areas. Instead, the fires have usually stayed in more forested areas, while smoke has been a bigger issue.

This week, though, fires burned through parts of the Rogue River Valley near Medford, and there were fires near Portland as well. Tens of thousands of Oregon residents were under evacuation orders.

California had a very rough week as well, as the August Complex became the largest fire in California history.

Air quality has been poor in many areas as smoke has blanketed large swaths of the state.

While conditions will improve a bit for firefighters in the coming week across California, there will be no major improvements with no rain in the forecast.

However, farther north across the Pacific Northwest, there is some hope for rain this week. This rain is hopefully a sign of things to come as we head toward the climatological end of the fire season across much of the Northwest.

Early in the week, there will still be a ridge in place:

That will keep temperatures close to average across the Northwest. However, a disturbance within that ridge will bring an opportunity for rain from western Washington and northwestern Oregon. In fact, the NAM, GFS and European all show the potential for a quarter to a half inch of rain in Portland between Monday night and Tuesday night.

Late in the week, though, the upper-level map will look quite a bit different as a large upper-level low swings into the Northwest.

While this looks fierce on the upper-level chart, this does not look to be a huge rainmaker for the West.

The good news, though, is that this larger system will likely mean more widespread showers, perhaps reaching as far south as Northern California.

A look at the precipitation forecast later in the week shows the potential for some decent rain from this system.

Nearly an inch of rain is possible across portions of the Northwest, which would be tremendous news. The GFS ensembles look pretty similar, which boosts confidence in the forecast a bit.

Spotty thunderstorms cannot be ruled out with this system, so you may have a situation where lightning may spark new fires - something we'll have to keep a close eye on.

That being said, I'm confident in saying that the positives will outweigh the negatives with this storm...something we haven't been able to say too much recently.

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