Forecasters issue rare weather warning as strong gusts fuel wildfire threats in Colorado

The National Weather Service on Friday issued a rare warning for part of Colorado's Front Range as hurricane-force winds and tinder dry conditions boosted the threat of wildfire across several counties, while flood warnings were issued in Oregon as rivers there swelled from heavy rain.

It marked another day of severe weather in parts of the United States, with forecasters issuing warnings for everything from more wintry weather bearing down on North Dakota to red flag warnings in Nebraska and Texas and flood warnings from Washington south into California.

Most notable was the “particularly dangerous situation” fire weather warning issued in Colorado on Friday morning, a first for this western state. PDS warnings are reserved for the most severe scenarios, and in this case it was fueled by forecasters' concerns that extreme combinations of strong winds, super low humidity and critically dry fuels could lead to life-threatening fire danger.

“We don't really want people to panic because that doesn't help anything, but we want people to be prepared,” said Jennifer Stark, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service office in Boulder. She noted that it is the peak windy season for the area.

By late afternoon, a high wind warning was still in place for the foothills and adjacent plains. Winds would gradually weaken after sunset, forecasters said.

A gust of 105 mph (169 kph) was recorded Friday at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. The wind toppled trees and took down power lines around the region, and authorities shared images of dust storms as they urged people to stay off the roads.

Tens of thousands of customers were without power as Xcel Energy carried out another public safety power shut-off to prevent further fire risks. The utility warned that unplanned outages resulting from wind damage were expected to significantly exceed the number of customers affected by the preventive shutoffs.

In Nederland, a town in the Rocky Mountain foothills, Matt Arlen helped stock shelves in a grocery store that was without power on Friday, one day after a burst of “panic shopping” in response to extreme weather.

“We’re used to kind of high winds,” he said. “It’s more the power outage affecting people up here that don’t have fire places” for heat at home.

Still, the combination of winds and dry weather were on Arlen's mind in a region that can be prone to wildfire. The 2021 Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes in the nearby suburbs of Boulder.

"The only thing is, we haven't had a lot of snow," said the pricing coordinator at B&F Mountain Market.

In Wellington, a town of 11,000 residents on a notoriously windy stretch of the Colorado plains near the Wyoming state line, public library tech Elaine Ringland said the wind was on everyone’s mind. At home, she used a generator during a blackout Wednesday and Thursday to keep a fridge running and a freezer from defrosting.

“I can tell you right now, our flag is standing straight out," she said Friday. “We’re prepared if we have to close down the library. Our town is watching it, and they’re in touch with the power company.”

In Ringland’s home neighborhood, winds bent trees and tossed around shingles and tumbleweeds.

Meanwhile in northwestern Oregon, National Weather Service forecasters said they expected widespread river flooding to continue following heavy rains.

In the rural city of Sheridan some 50 miles southwest of Portland, a 52-year-old man died after driving past road-closure signs onto a road covered with high water, the Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office said. A 911 caller saw a man get out of the car and into the water after the vehicle had been swept away by the current. His body was located by a drone and recovered by a rescue team and a resident, the sheriff’s office said.

Clackamas County, which spans some Portland suburbs and part of Mount Hood and the Cascade Range, earlier sent “go now” evacuation notices to 300 residences, county spokesperson Scott Anderson said. Some of the most significant flooding occurred on the Sandy, Clackamas and Molalla rivers, with authorities performing rescues throughout the night, he said. By later Friday, some of those evacuation notices had been lifted.

Among those rescued was a family of six who got stuck in their car after trying to drive on a flooded roadway, said Clackamas Fire District spokesperson Lynsey Amundson. Elsewhere, authorities used an inflatable raft to rescue a man from his home, she said.

In northern California, forecasters were expecting a Pineapple Express, a stronger atmospheric river that originates in the tropics near Hawaii, to arrive around Christmas Eve. That forecast brought hope to ski resort operators that much-anticipated precipitation will extend into the Sierra Nevada, where very little snow has fallen this season.

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Associated Press writers Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

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