Wildfires And Severe Storms This Week Are Following Concerning Trends

Wildfires just keep getting worse in the central and 
southern Great Plains. Fire activity is forecast to get
intense later today. 

 Northern Texas, western Oklahoma and southwestern Kansas are under a rare alert for "extremely critical fire conditions" today as yet another round of wildfires are bursting their way through the central and southern Plains. 

Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast states are gearing up for a big severe thunderstorm and tornado threat tomorrow. Both of these issues are part of a worrying trend. 

WILDFIRES

Extremely critical fire condition alerts are usually only issued 10 or so days per year somewhere in the nation.  This is the second time already this year that parts of Texas have been under this threat. This threat level means that dry conditions, very low humidity and strong winds would make any wildfires that start pretty much impossible to contain. 

In the "extremely critical" area today, fires were already spreading before weather conditions were expected to get dangerous. By dangerous, we mean a landscape parched by drought, bone-dry humidity and winds of 35 to 40 mph with gusts in the 65 to 70 mph range 

As of this past Friday, 123,000 acres in Texas had already burned this month, more than the three previous Marches combined, according to Texas Tribune.

The Texas fires this year have already caused one death and burned several structures.

Fires are already burning today in Oklahoma as well. A grass fire that started at an Oklahoma City salvage yard threatened several homes in the city. At least 10 of the houses were evacuated, but it looks like firefighters managed to save them. 

Earlier this month, a firefighter died while fighting a rangeland blaze elsewhere in Oklahoma. Several other wildfires this month have raced through mostly open country in North Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. 

As is so often the case, climate change seems to be helping to create an increasing trend of winter and spring wildfires in the Great Plains. Drought has become more endemic, and hotter weather than in the past dries things out faster. 

This has been known since at least 2017, when a study indicated that the number of large and dangerous wildfires in the Plains tripled between 1985 and 2014. 

It isn't just climate change causing this, of course. Farm abandonment is one reason.  If farmland is left alone, flammable weeds take over. Also, invasive species like a variety of cedar that burns easily and hot are probably increasing the severity of at least some of the fires.

TORNADOES

Notwithstanding last week's storms in Texas, there's been a trend toward lower numbers of tornadoes in the traditional "Tornado Alley" in the Great Plains.  The new tornado alley, if you will, now seems to be further east, in the Gulf Coast States, and the Mid-Mississippi and Tennessee River valleys. 

Once again, the Gulf Coast states are under a serious
risk of damaging thunderstorms and tornadoes, 
with most of them happening tomorrow. 

True to form, after a chance of a few tornadoes and severe storms today in a band from northeast Texas to southwest Iowa, tomorrow looks dangerous again in the Gulf Coast states. 

If things work out as expected the outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes centered in and around Mississippi won't be those classic individual supercell storms dropping large, wedged-shaped tornadoes.

Instead, most of the rough weather will consist of an intense line of storms, with damaging straight line winds of 75 mph in a few spots, along with embedded tornadoes swirling within the main line. In some ways, this type of tornado is more dangerous than "traditional" tornadoes with well defined funnels.

Tomorrow's anticipated tornadoes will be quick hitting and hidden behind walls of heavy rain, so nobody will be able to see them coming. Even though radar will pick up the tornadoes and the National Weather Service will issue tornado warnings as needed, there's something about human nature that needs visual confirmation that the twister is heading toward them.  There will be no such visual confirmation in most cases tomorrow. 

Research has confirmed the tendency in recent decades of more tornadoes in "Dixie Alley" and fewer overall in the Great Plains. 

The number of times the atmosphere is conducive to tornado formation is actually increasing pretty much everywhere east of the Mississippi River, including here in Vermont. (But don't worry too much, tornadoes will remain rarity in the Green Mountain State.