Some of the hottest weather so far this summer is hitting parts of the West.
In the last 2 days, temperatures have been near 100 degrees in the Pacific Northwest. It was 97 degrees in Portland, Oregon, and 99 degrees in Salem, Oregon, on Thursday.
This hot, dry and windy weather sparked several fires in the West. One of them was in Silver Falls State Park in Oregon where 185 children had to be evacuated, according to Portland ABC station KATU.
Wildfires also forced evacuations in the last few days near Chico, California, where the fire is now 40 percent contained and evacuations have been lifted.
The National Weather Service is warning that dry conditions, erratic winds, heat and lightning could start more fires this weekend in Northern California and into the Pacific Northwest.
It’s also been very hot from the Deep South into the Midwest where eight states from Alabama to Illinois are under a heat advisory.
Numerous fire watches, warnings and heat advisories have been issued from the Midwest into the Northwest.
The heat will intensify, especially in the West, where triple-digit temperatures will extend all the way close to Portland and Seattle will be in the 90s.
Several weather systems are producing heavy rain across the country on Saturday, including a stalled frontal boundary in the Midwest that caused damage in Iowa and Indiana.
There is also a new cold front moving into the Northern Rockies on Saturday, which is expected to bring severe weather today to the Dakotas.
A flash flood watch has been posted Saturday morning for parts of Colorado scarred by wildfires over the past few weeks.
Over the next several days, the cold front will move south and east from the northern Rockies, bringing heavy rain and storms to a large part of the country.
Rainfall totals will be heavy locally, where some areas could see more than 3 inches of rain.
Flash flooding is possible over the weekend and into early next week. And in the Rockies, debris flow and mudslides are possible over the burn scar areas.
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