The first rays of sun hit the clouds hanging over Tucson on Feb. 16, 2022.
Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star
After a week that saw near-record high temperatures, Tucson and Southern Arizona are bracing for a short return of winter weather expected to include high winds and cold rains.
Most of the region was under a red flag warning Monday morning, meaning that because of low humidity and high winds, there was an elevated risk of fire danger. The warning is meant to alert the public to potential dangers, according to Meteorologist Rob Howlett with the National Weather Service.
“When we expect winds to be greater than 20 miles per hour and the relative humidity to be below 15%, those are kind of our criteria for putting out this warning just to kind of alert the public and for our fire partners,” he said .
Howlett also said those high winds, which are part of a late winter weather pattern, will bring cooler temps starting at the beginning of the week, and the most rain the region has seen so far this year.
According to an NWS forecast, Tucson and surrounding areas have a slightly better than 50/50 chance of seeing more than a quarter inch of rain and higher elevations should be ready for at least an inch of snow.
“We could see several inches on Mount Lemmon,” Howlett said. “And then in our kind of more Northeastern areas like the White Mountains, we could see a few more inches above that.”
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