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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In April, the National Weather Service’s Eureka office is planning to launch reconfigurations of public weather and fire zones for northwest California as part of providing more detailed forecasts.
The Eureka office, which since 2020 has overseen Lake County, said the changes originally were set to take place on March 3, but are now set to go into effect at 1 p.m. April 16.
In the event that April 16 is declared a Critical Weather Day, the National Weather Service said the changes will be postponed until April 20.
Regarding the public weather zones, the National Weather Service said there currently are 15 public weather forecast zones that cover northwestern California.
The change will result in the addition of three new forecast zones which the agency said are meant to improve the alerting capabilities across the region.
The three new forecast zones will include two for Lake County and one for Trinity County.
In Lake County, the county’s southern zone will be divided into three zones: west and east zones, and a southwestern zone to cover elevations over 2,000 feet such as Cobb. A fourth existing zone, for northern Lake County, will remain unchanged.
The fire weather zones currently include 10 forecast zones across the northwestern California region, which the National Weather Service said “cover large areas with highly variable weather patterns.”
“Current zones also do not follow county boundaries, which can lead to small portions of a county being warned when the primary threat is in other areas,” the agency said.
“To remedy these issues and provide more detailed, accurate, and specialized fire weather forecasts, we are expanding from 10 fire weather zones to 21. The new zones were drawn leveraging stark changes in fuels, topography and weather while respecting county boundaries,” the National Weather Service said.
The agency said it created the new zones by working with federal, state, local and tribe fire agencies.
The National Weather Service reported the 21 new fire zones will only affect three fire weather products: the fire weather forecast, the red flag warning and the fire warning.
Only one of the 10 current zones includes Lake County: CAZ264 Lake County Portion of Lake/Napa/Sonoma RU.
The new configurations will include four zones for Lake County:
• CAZ418: Northern Lake Including Gravelly Valley.
• CAZ419: Eastern Lake Including Clearlake and Middletown.
• CAZ420: Southern Lake Including Cobb and Konocti.
• CAZ421: Western Lake Including Lakeport.
Email Elizabeth Larson at elarson@lakeconews.com. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, and on Bluesky, @erlarson.bsky.social. Find Lake County News on the following platforms: Facebook, @LakeCoNews; X, @LakeCoNews; Threads, @lakeconews, and on Bluesky, @lakeconews.bsky.social.
