Wildfires in California continue to burn through much of the San Francisco Bay area and northern and central parts of the state. So, once again, there's another extreme fire season out west.
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| No end in sight with massive California wildfires |
Vox has a great explainer as to why this week's wildfires are so extreme and weird. It started with that very rare lightning barrage last weekend across northern California. It's really dry out there and those thunderstorms had very little rain with them.
But they had a LOT of lightning strikes. Here's a money quote from Vox:
"'We had close to 11,000 strikes in a matter of three days,' said Brice Bennett, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) 'With an already warm weather pattern and very, very dry conditions here in California, with those lightning strikes coming through, over 367 new fires were started.'"
Those spot lightning fires merged and congealed into three massive fires. Two of them are already among the top five largest in California history, and they're not even close to being contained yet.
We know that wildfires are common in California, but they usually burn in dense forests inland from the Pacific Ocean or through dry shrub lands in southern California.
These fires started much closer to the coast, invading the state's famed redwood forests, which almost never catch fire. Some redwoods, perhaps some that were 1,000 years old, were likely destroyed this week.
Of course, Covid-19 is making matters worse. California prison inmates are often called upon to fight wildfires, but many were released from prison to ease Covid risks. Others are under quarantine, or sick, or can't travel to fires due to restrictions. Seasoned firefighters need to practice social distancing, and I imagine that hampers the cooperation needed to battle the fires.
The fires have already burned more acreage than in an entire wildfire season in California. Keep in mind, this is just the start of the fire season. Wildfires usually peak in California between mid-September and early November.
Plus, to politicize a bit, our Dear Leader Trump is not helping much so far. He is reported to blame California again, repeating his bizarre "logic" from the past two years. He said, "You gotta clean your floors. You gotta clean your forests. They have many, many years of leaves and broken trees.. .We say 'You gotta get rid of the leaves. You gotta get rid of the debris, You gotta get rid of fallen trees.'"
Sigh.
California has more than 30 million acres of forests. It's hard enough to do leaf and debris removal each spring on my one-acre plot in Vermont. Trump has no idea what it would be like to "clean" 30 million acres. And doing this somehow without wrecking the forest ecosystem?
Here's another Covid related problem with the wildfires: Air pollution is though to make symptoms in many people worse than they otherwise would be. Smoke from the wildfires made parts of California suffer the worst air pollution in the world at some points last week.
The smoke is spreading throughout the West. Actually, it's spreading all over the country. Even here in Vermont, we will often see hazy skies over the next several days at least because of the wildfires, thoug pollution levels here won't rise to dangerous levels.
TROPICAL STORMS
Meteorologists with the National Hurricane Center are still carefully watching Tropical Storms Laura and Marco.
Forecasts for these two systems will inevitably change, but at the moment, Tropical Storm Laura, near Puerto Rico this morning, only had top winds of 40 mph. Laura is forecast to slowly strengthen, but it also looks like it will struggle as it encounters land in Hispaniola and Cuba. Once it gets past Cuba, Laura could still easily turn into a dangerous hurricane when it eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Marco is just about to pass Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and enter the western Gulf of Mexico. It has top winds of 50 mph. It is forecast to strengthen for a time, then perhaps weaken amid strong high level winds in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. I would also note that Marco seemed to be overachieving this morning, strengthening faster than many meteorologists predicted.
Unlike earlier forecasts, Marco is now expected to become a hurricane later today.
Forecasts for the two storms will likely change as new information comes in, so stay tuned.
By the way, clickbait on social media is saying that Laura and Marco will get close enough together to merge into a mega hurricane. That is total hype. Not happening. There is a 100% chance that they will NOT merge into a mega hurricane. The two storms might affect each others' path and strength somewhat, but tropical storms and hurricanes don't merge to become super storms. Just chill, OK?
SEVERE WEATHER
As expected a few isolated strong to severe storms erupted in Vermont yesterday, but it was nothing too extreme. Trees came down along Route 30 near Lake St. Catherine, and the same happened nearby along Route 140 in Middletown Springs, according to storm reports.
Some relatively strong storms were moving through far southern Vermont early this morning, but basically we get a break from a storm threat today.
Scattered showers and storms, some of which could be on the strong side, could erupt in Vermont tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday, but forecast details are iffy at this point. It doesn't look like there will be anything super widespread, except possibly on Tuesday. Once again, stay tuned.
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