August 29, 2015 - Evening update: fire, rain, wind, and smoke

We had a little bit of everything today...Winds kicked up as expected, and frontal winds at noon were especially impressive, with gusts consistently in the 20-30 MPH range.  Here are the data from Kettle Falls:

[ERRATA--posted a map here from MesoWest, which mistakely showed temperatures instead of wind speeds]

This led to some blowing smoke, and increased fire activity, especially on the Carpenter Road fire (at least a couple thousand more acres likely burned). Now, we'll likely have some smoke settling into the area, especially the Chewelah Valley/Colville area, but also in some other place with nearby fire activity:

Rain on the ridges NW of the Chewelah valley appears to have prevented smoke from going into the Pend Oreille Valley: