Rocky Mountain has a new coach, the fire warning lifts at 6 a.m., and 87 with a chance of thunder

If you were up late last night you saw it: lightning walking across the foothills with almost no rain underneath it. That's the whole story of this week's weather in one image, and it's why there's been a Red Flag Warning hanging over the Treasure Valley since 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon. It expires at 6 a.m. — roughly the moment this lands in your inbox — but the monsoon moisture that caused it sticks around through tonight.

In today's issue: Rocky Mountain football has a new head coach and a running back who put up 998 yards last season. A behavioral health hospital on the east side opened a whole second building because it ran out of room. Meridian Police made an arrest Tuesday that's worth knowing about. Six things to do — though I'm going to be straight with you about the next seven days again. Let's get into it.

🧠 Trivia: Rocky Mountain High School has won three state football championships. Name the years. (Answer at the bottom.)

Sixth issue in a row I have to say this, so I'll say it plainly: there is nothing happening in Meridian between now and Aug 21 that hasn't already run in this newsletter. Kleiner Park Live's season finale is tonight — Soul Patch, 7 p.m., free — and we ran it back on Aug 4, so it's not getting a listing, but go anyway, because that series is done until summer 2027. Everything else this weekend (the car show, the market, the fun run, the line dancing, the speed dating) has been in here, some of it twice. So the list below starts Aug 24. All six are new here and all six are physically in Meridian.

Monday, Aug 24

Wednesday, Aug 26 – Saturday, Aug 29

Saturday, Aug 29

Tuesday, Sept 1 (runs through Dec 1)

Friday, Sept 11

Saturday, Sept 12

Know something happening in Meridian that isn't on any calendar? Six issues running, that's the gap this list keeps falling into. Hit reply.

⛅ Today: mostly sunny, high near 87, low around 58. A 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms. South-southeast wind around 6 mph turning west-northwest in the afternoon. Boise usually runs a few degrees hotter than the Meridian point forecast, but not today — the live Boise number is also 87. Plan for 87 and you're fine.

🔥 The Red Flag Warning expires at 6 a.m. It's been up since 3 p.m. yesterday, covering Treasure Valley BLM and about ten other fire zones across southwest Idaho and eastern Oregon, and the trigger was lightning rather than wind. NWS listed gusty erratic outflow winds up to 45 mph and scattered storms with abundant lightning, and put it about as plainly as they put anything: any fire that develops will catch and spread quickly, and outdoor burning is not recommended.

🌩️ The warning ends. The setup doesn't. NWS Boise describes a push of monsoon moisture bringing a mix of wet and dry scattered thunderstorms through this evening. The problem is the dry surface air: it limits how much rain actually reaches the ground this morning, which means you can get the lightning without the water that would normally put out what the lightning starts. That's how Highway 55 ended up closed north of Banks overnight.

😮‍💨 Still no air quality advisory. Second day clear after three straight weeks of them. There's a Hydrologic Outlook on the NWS hazard list, which is a heads-up about runoff, not an alarm.

📅 The week out: Sat 88 with a 30% chance of storms after noon, Sun 91 and sunny and hot, Mon 90, Tue 87. The break was brief. Sunday's the one to plan around.

Fine print, and this time it's good news: the NWS data feed finally refreshed. Yesterday's pull is stamped 12:30 p.m. Thursday on an hourly cycle — the first genuinely same-day forecast this newsletter has had in four issues. It was still cross-checked against the live Boise reading and the current NWS product text, and all three agree.

Scott Criner retired after seven seasons across two stints at Rocky Mountain, including the 2015 state title. Taking over is Gary Thorson, who spent last year at Ridgevue and took the Warhawks to a 6-4 record and the playoffs — the best season in that program's history — then saw the Rocky Mountain job open up and went for it.

He inherits a good roster. The Grizzlies went 10-2 last season and return five starters on offense and seven on defense, led by senior running back Oakley Baxter, who ran for 998 yards and 13 touchdowns and is first-team all-conference. Thorson wants him catching the ball more this year. Kalean Custer, who quarterbacked the team to 1,761 total yards last season, moves to receiver, and two players are competing for the job he vacated. Junior wideout Owen Oelkers has already picked up three Division I offers. On defense, linebacker Drake Peterson led the team with 104 tackles, and the returning linemen and corners were all-conference picks.

The thing hanging over the program: Rocky Mountain has lost in the state semifinals in three of the last four years, all three times to Rigby, who've taken four of the last five titles. The Grizzlies are the last team from the 6A Southern Idaho Conference to win one, back in 2020. Thorson's answer to that is to not talk about it. "Our focus can't be on that championship," he said. "It has to be the weight room, it has to be practice, it's got to be looking after each other."

First game is Aug 28 at Owyhee. Meridian comes to town Sept 25.

Idaho Press (Race Archibald), published Aug 13 at 12:28 p.m. MDT

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Cottonwood Creek Behavioral Hospital opened Haven last week, a new outpatient department directly across the street from its existing Meridian facility. CEO Ernest Esparza gave the least complicated reason there is: "At our hospital right now, we are at capacity, and so we needed to find additional space."

Haven does intensive outpatient care, partial hospitalization and virtual services for adolescents, adults and older adults. The gap it's built for is the one right after someone leaves inpatient care — market development director Morgan Van Ry called that "sometimes when they're the most vulnerable," and partial hospitalization is a step down from round-the-clock care to about 25 hours a week rather than a drop straight to therapy once a week.

The detail worth sitting with: the hospital normally sees adolescent admissions fall off in summer, when kids are out of school and with family. That hasn't happened for two years running. "In fact our unit has been quite full," Van Ry said. Esparza's read on why is personal — he found out his own daughter was struggling when he saw what apps were serving her, and he says she and her friends were "becoming dark together." His advice to parents is the unglamorous kind: be involved, know what they're looking at, know that you're the parent.

It lands the same week West Ada's screen-time framework starts. Two Meridian institutions arriving at roughly the same conclusion from opposite directions. If you or someone you know needs help, the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.

Idaho News 6 / KIVI (Kalkidan Meyer), published Aug 11 at 6:55 p.m. MDT

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Meridian Police arrested Jose Moreno Cortes, 32, on Tuesday, two days after a reported sexual assault involving a teenager. He faces a felony charge of child sexual battery. According to the department, Moreno Cortes and the victim did not know each other, had been texting, and agreed to meet; detectives identified him during the investigation. He is at the Ada County Jail on a $1 million bond, and the investigation is still open.

MPD's statement: "The Meridian Police Department takes allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation of children extremely seriously. Our officers and detectives are committed to thoroughly investigating these cases, protecting victims and holding those responsible accountable."

That's two arrests in eight days that started with an adult meeting a minor through a phone. Chief Basterrechea's advice from last week still applies and takes about four seconds to act on: the phone does not go into the bedroom at night.

Idaho Press (Matthew Neil Wells), published Aug 13 at 2:23 p.m. MDT

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2015, 2018 and 2020.

Three titles in six years, and then nothing since. That 2020 championship is still the last one won by any team in the 6A Southern Idaho Conference — which covers Rocky Mountain, Owyhee, Meridian, Mountain View, Eagle, Centennial, Boise, Capital, Timberline and Kuna. Every trophy since has gone east, and mostly to one address: Rigby has taken four of the last five, including all three semifinal wins over Rocky Mountain in the last four years.

What makes it stranger is that this side of the valley keeps producing Division I players. Last year's Rocky Mountain team alone sent five to FBS programs, two of them to Boise State. The talent isn't the problem. Whatever the last step is, nobody on this end of the state has found it in six years — and Gary Thorson's first shot at it starts Aug 28 in Owyhee's stadium, about four miles up Linder Road.