JACKSON, Wyo. — Labor Day weekend is setting up to be quiet across Jackson Hole weather-wise with comfortable temperatures expected. The biggest wild card will be the smoke, as has been the case for much of the summer.
This year’s Labor Day weather pattern will be much more benign compared to last year when we experienced record heat initially followed by a damaging wind event and snow down to the valley floor all in the same weekend. Luckily, we won’t have to worry about any of that this weekend.
Temperatures will not deviate significantly from average this weekend. Overall, we’ll experience a warming trend from Friday through Monday but each day will feature warm afternoons and chilly nights and mornings – typical for early September.
Behind Thursday’s disturbance, Friday and Saturday will be the cooler days of the holiday weekend with highs in the low 70s in the valley and overnight lows below freezing. In fact, we could see lows dip well into the 20s in the valley on Saturday morning.
A ridge of high pressure will strengthen later in the weekend with highs reaching the low 80s on Sunday and Monday while overnight lows will be in the low to mid 30s.
Rain is not expected at all over the weekend. Winds will generally be light to moderate in the valley from Friday through Sunday with afternoon gusts to 15-20 mph, then will increase a bit on Monday with gusts to 25 mph. The higher peaks of the Tetons will see gusts of up to 25-35 mph from Friday through Sunday and up to 35-45 mph on Monday.
The smoke, on the other hand, continues to make for a more challenging forecast due to multiple wildfire locations and frequently shifting winds aloft over the Western U.S. Overall, improvement is likely compared to most of the prior week, but it’s looking less likely that we’ll see smoke completely clear out of the area either.
One of the wrinkles to this outlook is the Boundary Fire in Central Idaho, which was flared up substantially in recent days and is expected to contribute to our smoke issues over the weekend.
On Friday and Saturday, the general trend will be a decrease in smoke from California fires but an increase in smoke from the Boundary Fire. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that the Boundary Fire is producing less smoke overall compared to the combination of massive fires burning in California.
On Sunday and Monday, it now looks like some of the smoke from California will try to make a comeback and we could see some additional smoke from the Boundary Fire as well. At the time of this writing (Thursday afternoon), there is not any one day over the weekend that looks better or worse than the other.
Be sure to check purpleair.com for the latest air quality ratings and also use your own senses if away from your computer (visibility of the surrounding mountains, whether or not you can smell the smoke) to determine your level of comfort when it comes to outdoor recreation.
Alan Smith, Meteorologist
