Near to record high temperatures will be with us for the next several days. Triple digit highs will start on Thursday, and initially the dry air and stable flow will keep our skies mostly clear, with only a few pop up clouds in the afternoon here and there. But as the heat stays in the region, a weak offshore southern California low pressure center will steer up some light southern flow, bringing some moisture up with it. Afternoon clouds will build on Friday, and a slight chance of mainly afternoon thunderstorms will be with us through the weekend and into the middle of next.

You’ve probably all heard it: “Here in Reno we get 300 days of sunshine a year.” I’m not sure where that came from…probably something that the RSCVA put out long ago that has been repeated enough to where it becomes accepted urban legend. But it’s wrong. According to “The Climate of Reno, NV” (in my opinion the definitive climatic summary for Reno), we average 158 clear days a year, 92 partly cloudy days a year, and 114 cloudy days a year. Even being generous by calling a partly cloudy day a “day of sunshine”, you still have way less than 300 days of sunshine a year.